Things that they both have in Japan and Taiwan

You cannot deny the fascination that Taiwan has with Japan. To the point where I would say probably 20% of all the stores in Taipei, at least, are selling something from Japan. Or maybe they’re a Japanese restaurant. Or maybe there is some Japanese fashion outlet. I’m not going to say that when you come to Taiwan, then you feel like you’re in Japan because it has its own Taiwan flavor. I’m going to say, though, that it’s just really, very hard to deny the similarities between Taiwan and Japan. I’m just going to tell you a little bit about some of them

711

I bet you didn’t know that Taiwan has the second most convenience stores per capita in the world. The first one is South Korea. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next one were Japan. The point is that you will see convenience stores on every corner. And obviously, the leader of all these convenience stores is 7-Eleven. Family mart And OK mart. But not to me. Nothing beats 7-Eleven. Do you know if you are bored, you could probably see that there are some corners with two 7-Elevens on each opposite corner of the street in Taipei? Unless the same owner owns them, then I have no idea what the point of that is.

Onigiri 

This is a minor point, but it’s a good point. Whenever I go to these convenience stores, they have this Japanese snack. It’s seaweed with some rice inside and in the middle there are meat and vegetables. I mean, this is like an Asian dish. Something that you would probably never find in a western store at all. And it’s everywhere. It was pretty cheap too. I would say probably it’s about $.70. And I mean, if you’re just kind of in a rush and want to eat something, it’s a terrific snack. And I know this is from Japan. So if you want to go and have a quick snack, then you can pick this up at a convenience store in Taiwan

Japanese restaurants

oh my God, the number of Japanese restaurants everywhere. I mean, you can have sushi, you can have teriyaki, you can have Japanese fast food. The list goes on. It’s pretty crazy, I mean, yeah, you can have Taiwanese food, but the Japanese food is so readily available. They even have like a sushi train. It’s incredible. For the most part, Japanese food in Taiwan is pretty cheap, so if you wanted to have it every weekend, it would not break the bank. At the same time, if you want more bang for your buck, I would probably say stick with Taiwanese food. Just the amount of Japanese food, and I mean, to be honest with you, it’s perhaps not precisely the same as Japanese food in Japan, but the Japanese franchises are there. I mean, they have the exact Japanese franchises from Japan in Taiwan. So if you want to have some Japanese food, you won’t run out of options in Taiwan

No garbage cans on sidewalks 

Anybody who’s ever been to Japan will probably tell you that the streets are so clean. In Taiwan, I wouldn’t say that the roads are super clean, but the lack of garbage cans on the streets makes it, so people probably stick the garbage in their pockets. Coming from Toronto, I could tell you that some roads are pretty nasty. And the thing is that the garbage cans are on every corner. Usually, the garbage cans are flooded with garbage because the garbage person hasn’t come around to pick up everything. So the point is that tall, Taiwan imitates Japan a lot, especially when it comes to the cleanliness of the city. They say that the highest form of flattery is imitation. So in that respect, Way to go, Taiwan

Asians

I know this is kind of silly. Taiwan is in Asia. Japan is in Asia too. The point that I’m trying to make, though, is that if Japanese people want to go to someplace, that’s not Japan, but at the same time, it’s close by. If they still want to have kind of a little bit of an Asian flavor but not have to speak Japanese, then definitely come to Taiwan. And vice versa. Taiwanese people go to Japan all the time. They don’t have a problem getting a visa to go over there. Some Taiwanese people stay in Japan for a really long time and raise their kids there. So obviously, there’s a perfect relationship between Taiwan and Japan. And yeah, Taiwan knows that, and they take advantage of that relationship by having all the same stuff that they have in Japan over here in Taiwan

This is an exhaustive list comparing things between Taiwan and Japan. I mean you have other things too, like the culture itself. Taiwan opened the first cat café in Taiwan before it was opened up in Japan. So that’s another thing, too as well. There are so many similarities between Japan and Taiwan, and also, there are Chinese characters the Japanese people use in their writing. So if you want to have a little bit of flavor of Japan, then you can come to Taiwan. If you want to go to Japan, then go to Japan. But Taiwan has something going on here, and it’s pretty interesting