Rock wrote:
Taipei has more parks by far than anywhere else in Taiwan. Do you really think you saw all there was to see in your short visit? Not even close. Besides the parks, some other areas like National Taiwan University function as defacto huge parks complete with gyms, swimming pools, and 400 meter running tracks. Check out some of these parks in the following link. I see Chiayi only has two by the way lol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parks_in_Taiwan
Why is it that in Shenzhen, even the tourism desk in train station area can't give me proper directions to some hotel cus they don't know exactly where it is and when they ask others they get conflicting answers. Why is it in Shenzhen some people are so low as to steal an umbrella? Why is it that in Shenzhen I have a hard time finding a decent resto that I like? Why is it in Shenzhen the hotel wifi sucks (Seven Days Inn) and I can't access some of my favorite frequent sites like Google, Youtube, and Facebook? Why is it in Shenzhen I can't find a running track within a 3 km vicinity when I wanna run at night nor are gyms easy to find? Why is it in Shenzhen I sometimes get rude taxi drivers who make speaker phone calls to their friends while yelling back and forth and ignoring me and also who don't speak proper Mandarin? Why is it in the Shenzhen MRT I sometimes see idiots sitting on the floor with dirty soiled clothes? Why are people there in general so bad at giving directions? I hated the Luohu area and Shekou though more sanitary and user friendly is overall not much better.
That's not true at all Rock. Yesterday in Taipei I held a CITY MAP in my hand. There were no big parks at all on it. Only the small one we went to, and another one up north that was also small but had flower gardens. Nothing anywhere near the size of the parks in Shenzhen. I gave the map to my dad and he said that's all the parks there are in Taipei. I was shocked. I never seen a major city in the world with such a tiny park. All the bigger parks that I went to before in Taiwan, were OUTSIDE the city, Rock, NOT INSIDE the city. University campuses don't count. We are talking about normal city parks with trees, grass and lakes. Even Fremont, CA has a nicer park than Taipei! LOL
Here's the proof:
http://conf.ncku.edu.tw/isb2007/map_Taipei.jpg
As you can see, only tiny parks. Even Chiayi's main park is larger and has a forest and arboretum. I'm shocked Taipei's parks are smaller than Chiayi's, even though Taipei is the capitol city! WTF? LOL
As for all the stuff you listed about Shenzhen, you must have gone to a different Shenzhen man. When I was there, it was mostly a clean nice modern convenient safe city. Me and some guys walked around late at night and it was very safe too. Everything was convenient too.
Shenzhen easily beats Taipei for food man. There are a LOT more restaurants everywhere. WAY MORE. Ethan_sg showed me some great delicious ones. You can ask Zboy1. Zboy1, me and Ethan_sg went to some restaurants in Shenzhen that were superb yet cheap. Where were you Rock???!!! LOL. Even the mall food court at KK Mall in Shenzhen has excellent food, very delicious! I loved it! Where were you man?! LOL
And like I said, the restaurant menus in Shenzhen are MUCH BIGGER than in Taiwan. They are like 10 to 15 pages. LOTS of food choices. Most Taiwanese menus I've seen are only 1 or 2 pages. Very tiny in comparison. Ethan_sg and I went out to eat a lot and he can testify to this too.
Yes it's true that Shenzhen people aren't as good at giving directions. And the taxi drivers don't know all the streets. But that's because Shenzhen is much larger than Taipei man. Think about it. But regardless, every place has its cons, and these are minor inconveniences. So what? As long as my social life and dating life are better, that's what matters most.
You can ask Ethan_sg. He and I met many girls in Shenzhen that are educated, down to earth, and have a NICE POSITIVE vibe. We could relax and be ourselves with them.
You exaggerate the negatives Rock. Sure I saw some of them too, but not to the degree you did. You get used to them after a while and tune them out. Overall, Shenzhen is mostly clean, very safe, very convenient, has a lot more food choices than Taipei for sure, and many restaurants are open all night with lots of people in them, even at 3am.
As for internet restrictions, we discussed that before. You gotta use a VPN in China. It only costs 10 dollars a month. You can use mine if you want. I'll give you the login and password and client to download. :p