I've spoken before about how stores and restaurants in Taiwan have strange hours. Restaurants will be open during a short time for lunch and dinner, while stores, clinics, and services will close during lunch time. It's definitely an adjustment, but with hard work you can get yourself onto the special timing needed to both be able to eat each day and run your errands.
What is harder to plan for are the days off. Some places take weekends off. Some take Sundays off. Mondays are actually a big day off, as museums, traditional markets, and some government run locations are closed on Mondays. I remember when I first arrived in Taiwan I thought I was a genius asking for Sundays and Mondays off instead of the weekends. This way I'd have one business day to go around town and do the many things I had to do as I was new to the country. Ha, the joke was on me when I found out that many things were closed on Mondays.
The true inconvenience though is that most places don't have a regular day off. For most of these places the only way that you know they are taking a day off is when you go there you will find the store closed and a handwritten note saying "day off today." Granted you could know the day before as they usually put the sign up at closing time the night before, but nobody is going to go around at night to see what will and wont' be open tomorrow. A few places will tell you that tomorrow they will be closed, but it's not so helpful as if you are there today, than there is a strong chance you wouldn't have needed to go there tomorrow as well.
On the one hand it can be quite infuriating. You have a craving for one type of food and you walk over there to see that it's closed. Also it can teach you to be a great planner. For lunch I not only have to decide what I want to eat, but I have to also plan what my back up is. Some days I don't go to my favorite places as they are by themselves and if they are closed than I'm kind of out of luck. Instead I'll go to areas that have a bunch of so-so restaurants because I know that at least one of them has to be open.
But on the other hand, it almost can make people more productive, as it kind of teaches you to never put off to tomorrow what you can do today, cause you never know if the the place you need to go will be open tomorrow. But it's hard to have such an optimistic attitude when you are starving and you have the unfortunate luck of every restaurant you go to deciding to take that day off, almost as if they planned to make people starve that day. Or you have only one day off and you want to get something done, but the place you need to go is also taking a day off.
The sign above is one of thsse heart sinking signs you see when you go to a shop and it's closed. Although this one I was a day late to as it was actually open when i took this picture. This sign is pretty nice as it says in advance when it will be closed. But that writing was a new addition on this day. Before this the restaurant was closed for about four days and the sign only said "thank you for your patronage but we have been working so hard and really need a rest." It was quite an amusing sign as it didn't say at all how many days they were taking off or when it would be open again.
Luckily I found an easy way to make places open up. Just go there to take a picture of their sign that says "day off" and they will miraculously be open!
