Oct 25, 2009
Our car
Stacy’s brother Quinn is in The Netherlands, doing a Ph.D. there. He left his car in Taiwan, and generously offered to let us use it while we’re here. At first we weren’t convinced that we would need a car here, but after we got it, we were immediately glad that we did. It’s a small Nissan sedan that is just big enough for the four of us.
Stacy has a Taiwan driver’s license, but I use my Michigan license plus an international driver’s permit that I got from AAA before we left Michigan. Driving in Taiwan is a surreal experience, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
For those of you who are curious about the price of gas, we filled up the car this morning. Gas was NT$30.5 per liter. That works out to about US$3.59 a gallon. Not being in Michigan, I don’t know if that is high or low, although I suspect that it’s just a bit higher than Michigan prices. Someone can let me know how close the prices are.
Ian is disappointed that the driving age is 18 in Taiwan, so even though he will turn 16 in a few months, he can’t drive here. As if we would let him drive in Taiwan anyway. 🙂  Some say that if you can drive in Taiwan, you can drive anywhere in the world. I say that driving in Taiwan ruins you for driving anywhere else in the world. I shudder to think of Ian learning to drive here, then applying the “Taiwan rules” to Michigan driving. 😮
Gas is $2.64 in Lansing now, so not far off at all! I think the same “if you can drive in…” rule applies to anyone who’s survived driving in Morocco!
Learning to drive in America then adapting to Taiwan driving prepares you for driving in many other countries such as Thailand & India. Actually Thailand driving seemed civilized after driving in Taipei.