High level of service and availability

So far, Taipei was a pretty cool place. The people were so friendly. We had no permission problems; everyone just wanted to help out. The level of service here was just unbelievable. There was a person at every corner trying to help which was both awesome and severely annoying at the same time. If you needed someone they were there, but if you didn’t want someone watching, no luck on that. At one of the grocery stores, the manager even seemed amazed at what we were doing and wanted to know everything about it and where we were from. She seemed, basically; completely honored to have us there. One day I bought a nice pen as a realtor gift. When it came time to pay, I handed my credit card to the lady at the counter and suddenly she sprinted away with it. She didn’t have a machine with her. Coming back, we watched her as she started sprinting back to us to return my credit card to me. It was utterly hilarious. The people at the hotel were great too. The breakfast staff knew both Edit’s and my (last) name and eventually knew our room number as well. (Not to mention that the complimentary breakfast was amazing! Everything you could imagine was available – from tradition Chinese dishes to western cuisine). When we would leave in a taxi to go out, the doorman would give us a business card with the hotel’s information and address on it in Chinese symbols so that we could communicate how to get home. We may have been screwed otherwise! The business staff did everything they could to help out with our phone calls (even though it was a bit frustrating that they couldn’t finish everything we asked of them). When the phone calls took too long, they helped us hire a translator who came to the hotel. He was in Edit’s room. When I walked in I was shocked. He was very tall and thin and nearly jumped at me with all his anxiety. He had a serious stutter, and he was completely wound up like he was worried that we might yell or hit him if he did anything wrong. “He-he-hello Ms. Basleeeerr, ma ma my name is ……………” I was absolutely and completely shocked that a guy with a stutter worked for a translating company, but… hey; he ended up getting our work done quickly and efficiently so we couldn’t complain.


Also, availability in Taipei in the stores is just awesome. International brands were available everywhere which made the survey much easier. In one store, I asked for the price of CK sheets and the lady told me but said “they are made in Taiwan”. It almost seemed like the expected quality in Taiwan to be different than that of the US because they were made in Taiwan. Little does she know that products sold in the US are also actually made in Taiwan!