Taiwan: Slower Updates, Buying Taiwan SIM Card, Taxi Rates

I guess my daily updates will be infrequent while I'm in Taiwan since the internet that I have is quite slow. Uploading pictures takes forever and I haven't had the time to be able to edit pictures when I get back from a full day. Usually I'm pretty tired by the time I get home and just knock out after a good shower.

A thought from yesterday: apparently the SIM card that I bought from 7-11 for my phone charges at a pretty high rate. I thought the initial NT$300 phone charge was going to last me awhile, but I ran out of minutes yesterday when I needed to call my friend to meet up at the MRT station. After closer examination I found out that the SIM card charges at a rate of NT$0.71/6 seconds. That makes it NT$7.1 per minute, which comes out to roughly 40 mins from a NT$300 charge card. I have to use the phone more sparingly or else I'm going to be eating up those minutes. As always, a 7-11 was nearby and I walked in and purchased a NT$300 more minutes for my phone.

Also for those interested in purchasing a SIM card while traveling in Taiwan, make sure that you have a GSM phone or else your phone will not work. Also, in Taiwan has apparently gotten more strict about purchasing temporary SIM cards and a local phone shop told me that they do not even sell them anymore. I know 7-11 sells them and since they are literally every block in Taipei, it is easy to find a place to purchase them. In order to buy a SIM card in Taiwan, you need 2 forms of identification and other tiny bits of information such as a local address that you are staying at. Luckily the employee at 7-11 was nice enough to help guide me through the application form since it was a rough 50/50 mix of English and Mandarin (which I cannot read). After the forms were filled, it was faxed to some agency in Taiwan that performs a background check and it took roughly 3 or 4 hours before my SIM card was activated.

Another thing I noticed yesterday when I took the taxi home from my friends house at midnight local time was that taxis apparently charge an extra NT$20 on top of your final fee for any rides between 11 PM until 6 AM. At first I thought the taxi driver was jacking up the prices, but apparently after asking my aunt it was a fact. The taxi driver that I talked to told me that he purposely that most taxi drivers work a 12 hour shift and that he in particular wanted the night shift to make the extra NT$20 per ride. The way the taxis work is that they normally start off with a NT$70 flat rate for the first 1.5km travel distance and then NT$5 for every 300m traveled.