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HOUSE EXCHANGE Franz Tokyo to Seoul

 House Exchange from Tokyo to Seoul!

 

Hello, this is Share House Borderless House!

One of our tenants in Tokyo, Franz has been to Seoul for a week by house exchange program!

He gave us so many adorable pictures and comments what he felt in Seoul.

Why don’t we look around his first travel to Seoul?

 

 

Hello, my name is Franz and I am from Sweden.

Since I am staying in Tokyo from a few months ago,

I always wanted to visit another countries near Japan.

When I heard that I can stay in one of shared houses of Borderless

in Kansai, Seoul and Taipei by FREE HOUSE EXCHANGE program,

I thought this is really great chance for me.

 

 

I was planning to visit Seoul from quite long time ago,

so I decided to visit Seoul with this wonderful program.

I could stay one of shared houses in Seoul for free,

and I was really feel comfortable to make a plan for my first trip.

A staff of Borderless House Seoul recommend me some houses

where I can stay during the term I visit Seoul, and I chose Hongdae 5 House.

 

 

They were my housemates during my stay in Seoul!

They were so nice and helpful.

I feel so friendly with them, although I stayed there only for a week.

I thought it is possible to be real family with unknown people in Borderless House.

I hope to meet them again, if I can have chance to visit Seoul once again!

 

 

I really loved to visit many famous attractions in Seoul.

I could see many sites in Seoul with many recommendation from my housemates.

It feels so nice when I visit a country for the first time!

Although I am staying in Japan now, I would like to visit Seoul for a long time someday!

 

 

I would like to say that Han-river was the best place in Seoul where I visited.

Hongdae 5 House where I stayed during the term I stayed in Seoul,

has really good access to anywhere in Seoul.

Especially for Han-river and Hongdae, those were really close to the house.

It was so convenience to visit all around Seoul by subway line No.2 from the house.

 

This dish called 짜장면 and 탕수육!

My housemates highly recommend this dish to try.

It was so nice that I could try many dish in one menu!

And I got surprised that it delivered so fast.

I felt it came just we cut the call for taking an order!

 

 

I really want to say thank you to all my housemates.

Although they have their work or schedule, because they are actually ‘living’ in Korea,

they always helped me to find good places where I should visit in Seoul,

and they took me to good restaurants for dinner!

I think the best opportunity for this Free House Exchange Program is that

I can make local friends who actually living in Seoul.

When I travel somewhere, I could visit places where are famous for sightseeing only.

But this time, I am sure that I could feel as many things as I can feel in Seoul as a tourist.

Thank you Borderless!

 

* Only for tenant *

If you want to join our House exchange program,

feel free to contact us! Always welcome!

Please refer to the link below for more information.

http://www.borderless-house.com/houseexchange

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Event Review: Go hiking together ~ enjoy the fresh air on Jinmian Mountain!

Hello everyone! This is BORDERLESS HOUSE TAIPEI 🙂 Have you ever gone hiking in the mountain in Taiwan? Though Taipei is a busy city, you can still slow down your pace and take a breath in the mountain without spending much time to get there! In February, we held a small event of going hiking in Jinmian Mountain located in Neihu. Let’s have a review of that day♫

First, we would like to introduce Jinmian Mountain~

Jinmian mountain is located in Neihu district in Taipei city, and the nearest MRT station will be Xihu station and Neihu station. The hiking path is about 2.3 kilometers long, and it probably takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to hike. However, since everyone was chatting, taking pictures, and enjoying the scenery while hiking, we spent about 2 hours to complete that day. Though this path had variable terrain and people required much effort to hike, the beautiful and amazing view on the top was worth visiting!

At 9:30 A.M. that day, everyone had breakfast together in the Mcdonald’s near MRT Xihu station first, then headed for the hiking path! Walking along the alley next to the Exit1 of MRT station, we arrived the entrance of path situated at Sec.2, Huanshan Rd.

Let’s take a look at pictures of hiking that day ☀

This time our staff Daniel was the guide of the hike (The one in bright blue jacket). The tenants who took part in were from France, Korea and Taiwan. Though the number of participants were not so many, a team with fewer people was also more flexible and you wouldn’t be left alone. It was so exciting and inspiring to get to the top!!! We also met other hikers and took pictures together, and quiet atmosphere of the mountain became so lively~ On the top, you can overlook the whole Taipei city, and the horizon is very wide. Being far away from the busy life of city temporarily and making new friends as well seems great, doesn’t it? (Smile)

After going down the mountain, everyone saw a temple of Koxinga and had a visit together. We even experienced the procedure of worshiping. Koxinga is a historic figure of Taiwan who had ruled the country, so people set up temples one after the other to remember him after he passed away. These are related to Taiwanese culture and might be very different experiences to foreigners! We appreciate the feedback and sharing from our tenants who joined this event❤ 吳琦：“From time to time, it’s nice to have such event that everyone can meet each other and exchange thoughts. I think hiking is a good choice which can also exercise my inflexible muscles and bones (LOL). It also made me touched when everyone took care of each other on the tough way XD. I hope I can join this kind of event again next time!” Samuel：“The hike in Jinmian was nice and fun. I remember there were around 10 people, whose most of them I didn’t know. So that was cool. Going up was a bit tough for some (many many stairs!) but globally everyone enjoyed it. Moreover we took our time, waiting for each other. And the top really worth some efforts, the view is good from there. A bit scary when it gets windy, but that made it fun as well ^^ I went two times there. I really like it and recommend it for sure :)” We will hold more tenants-only events in the future, come join us and meet new friends!! See you next time ~~☺
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How is life in Taipei, Taiwan? -Interview with German tenant

Hello!! This is BORDERLESS HOUSE in Taipei!! We have a tenant from Germany who currently stays at BORDERLESS HOUSE TAIPEI. He has joined language program and usually interacts with his partner and staffs humorously.

We would like to introduce his life in Taipei and his own stories!

Self-introduction

Hello I’m Philipp from Germany, and I’m 24 years old. I studied music before and I play the saxophone. After studying, now I come to Taiwan for learning language and have Chinese course here. Because my girlfriend is from Taiwan, I want to understand her culture more!

Could you share your daily life in shared house?

I sleep a lot (laugh). But from Monday to Friday, I have classes from 8:40-11:30 in TKU. After that, I go to sleep again and do my homework. In fact, this is my second time to come to Taiwan, I traveled to Kenting, Tainan, and Hualien with my girlfriend last August.

Why do you choose BORDERLESS HOUSE in the first beginning? 

Because I want to practice Chinese with other Taiwanese housemates! Is there anything difficult or tough for you to live in Taiwan? The weather, and maybe the mosquitoes. Last year I have problems with mosquitoes’ bite, but I didn’t have serious problems with it this time. There were only two in my room. (And he slapped them!)

What impressed you the most during your stay in Borderless House or in Taiwan?

In the first day I came, my housemates did the karaoke, they love the karaokay! They just played the song on Youtube and sang with it. Dance and sing! As for other experiences, one of the cultural shock was that I found there was no sidewalk when I once went on the street. That’s very strange for Germany. Another was that my girlfriend’s parents took me to the restaurant and made me eat the animals’ organs and frog legs. They told me, “It’s chicken chicken, so just eat it eat it.” (note: Many people who had tried frog said that it tasted like chicken.) I ate very much and I thought that was chicken. But I realized the truth after my girlfriend’s friend told me.

Speaking of Taiwan, what is the most attractive point for you?

The food, very nice and helpful people. I love the dumplings, beef noodles and teppanyaki. Maybe the nature as well.

With your experiences, could you kindly give some advice to those who are going to come to Taiwan?

The good thing is that if you lost something, people here are always friendly and helpful! (Picture in the mountain.) (He joined the language program and practiced Chinese with his Taiwanese partner Michelle.) Thanks Philipp for sharing his experiences!! We had good time chatting with him and hope that he can achieve his goal on learning Chinese 🙂 Check BORDERLESS HOUSE in Taipei>> http://www.borderless-house.com/tw/all/ Check Tenant’s only Program>> Free House Exchange http://www.borderless-house.com/houseexchange/ Language Exchange http://www.borderless-house.com/languageexchange/  
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Sharing your Stories in our Christmas event with our tenants!

Hello everyone! What are you going to do for Christmas? We had a Christmas event with our tenant! We exchanged Christmas presents, shared stories and played Bingo! Everyone was enjoyed and met new friends through this event.

Let’s check it out!

 

Preparing for our Christmas event.

Decorations, food are so important for Christmas! We had the dinner and enjoyed getting to know each other. Everyone was welcoming and friendly!

The most important part of Christmas is gift exchange!

Hope everyone got a nice gift. We also prepared some gift for the winners of Bingo!

Enjoy champagne, cookie or board games with your housemates!

  After the games, it was free time for you guys to talk with anyone! Let’s take pictures, exchange contact information and keep in touch! ^_< Took happy group photos with all participants! Thanks for join us! Hope everyone enjoyed it and join us at our next event! Please check our fanpage on Facebook for more photos! →【Borderless House Facebook Page】←
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Event report: 【Borderless House Christmas Party 2016】 who was the winner of 1 month rent free ticket!?

Hello, this is Chisa from Borderless House. 
 
On 18th of December, we have hosted 【Borderless House X’MAS Party 2016】!!!
We would like to thank everybody for joining us! 
 
This year the party was held based on the theme: “hirogaru, tsunagaru” (directly translated as “binding together and widening”),
meaning it’s an opportunity for all the guests ad friends to get together, 
regardless of nationality, language and which houses the guests are from. 
 
Here is how the event went: 
 
The party was held at an Italian restaurant in Shibuya -the warm and cozy atmosphere welcomed all our guests!
 
We were the MC -thank you all for your patience! 
 
The party began with a warm up game before the toast; “Hi five self introduction game!”
The guests need to do hi five with 3 people when their eyes meet, and introduce themselves 
(name, nationality, which house he/she is from, hobby and etc.)
After the self introduction is done with 3 people, the guests are handed their first drinks and a BINGO card. 
 
The toast was called as follows: “To the many encouters of tonight! Kanpai (=cheers)!”
 
Looks like the guests have warmed up at the first free talk session, 
and are feeling much more comfortable mingling with the ones that just met!
The guests were to fill in the blanks by writing in each others’ names.
 
Then the next game was the highlight of the event: BINGO! 
 
Everybody was all pumped up to become winners! 
After the 7 winners were chosen, there was a lottery to decide which winner is going to win which prize”
 
The guy in the middle won the booby prize…(=a throat coat candy, swabs and a sushi key chain)
 
He won the second prize…(= tickets to Yokohama Cosmo World for 4 people)
 
I hope he can go with all his housemates!
And last but not least, he was the first prize winner! 
 
Congratulations on winning 1 month free rent ticket!!! 
“I will throw a big house party and everybody here is invited!” was the comment he made on the spot 🙂
Let’s look forward to the party then? Omedeto gozaimasu!
 
 
The party ended in a great success, thanks to all our fellow tenants and their friends for joining us!
There was also an after party which half of the guests have gone to! Awesome!
 
We are more than happy that the party became a wonderful opportunity for our tenants from different houses to get to know each other,
and most of all, to have a merry Christmas together! 
 
We hope to see you at the next event! 
Thank you once again to all the guests who made it to the party,
and merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!
 
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FREE HOUSE EXCHANGE Ran Taipei Tokyo

Hi, this is BORDERLESS HOUSE in Taiwan! We want to share that one of our tenants, Ran from BORDERLESS HOUSE TAIPEI have visited Tokyo from November 7 to November 17 for 10 days with House Exchange program. He stayed in BORDERLESS HOUSE Sakurajosui1house. His introduction is below. :;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;:: ☺ Ran’s brief introduction Randall is from America and worked as a food product developer for four years, now he is in Taiwan learning mandarin! He chose to stay in BORDERLESS HOUSE is because he wants to use this opportunity to make some new friends and practice his Mandarin. He also likes to go outside enjoying anything nature!! Let’s see what brought him to attend this program first! Since I needed to renew my visa for Taiwan and this opportunity proves free boarding I figured why not! Coming home to a house full of housemates is also much more fun than returning to an empty hotel/hostel room♥   ✔Let’s check his feedback after he came back from Tokyo!!! :;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:*ﾟ:;;::;;:*:;;::;;:* (Ran is a left one ^^ with Fuji Mountain and his new roommates) Q1. How was your exchange? My trip was great. Last time I was in Japan I was mostly limited to one area. This time I used the money saved on housing to purchase a JR Pass. I started my trip in Sapporo Hokkaido. I stayed there for a couple of nights before taking a sleeper bus to Hakodate. The next morning my JR Pass started and I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo to start my stay in the share house. From Tokyo I was able to travel to Nikko, Kiso Valley, Kofu, Kyoto/Nara, Kaurizawa, Niigata, and Fujigoko mostly to go hiking. Coming from the sweaty jungles of Taiwan, It was really refreshing to be able to breathe the cool air and see all the autumn colors.   Q2.What is the most memorable episode? Going up Mt. Mitutouge/Kinashiyama with my housemates. From the side we started on the hike was supposed to be around 3-4 km to the top with an ascent of 1700m. It was an exhausting few hours to make it to the top. But the view of Mt. Fuji and the surrounding area was worth it. By the time we made it down the other side the sun was setting.   Q3. Do you have any comments who consider? My housemates were a fun bunch to talk to and made my trip more enjoyable. I really do wish I was able to stay longer than the week and a half I was there. Let’s see photos he shared below!! ➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤ (Hakodate) (Sapporo) (Tokyo Dome) (Nara with cute deer) ➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤ He went to so many places during his trip in Japan! And which also make us feel very happy and very enjoyable when we read his wonderful sharing! He used the money saved on housing to purchase a JR Pass which makes us feel very glad that we could support our tenants’ trip. Free House Exchange program can provide more opportunities for our tenants to meet and stay with local people in the country and have a real cultural experience!! Since our houses are in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, you can stay one of our houses for FREE!! ✫ If you are interested in our program, please don’t feel hesitate to join the program! http://www.borderless-house.com/houseexchange/houseexchange_form/ ✫ You can check the details of this program on our website blow. http://www.borderless-house.com/houseexchange/
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Living costs in Taipei

Hello, this is Borderless House! I’m sure we can’t know the real life of foreign countries, and one of the important point is living cost. How much do we need to live in Taipei for a month? Today, I’ll introduce how much it would be cost for a month in Taipei(1 month living cost in Taipei)!

■ Rent in Taipei

There are many types of houses in Taipei. ※We will upload regarding the house type later. If you would like to live by yourself, it would cost around 8,000 NTD-15,000 NTD in general. You can find the house which would cost around 5,000 NTD/month but I recommend you the house over 8,000 NTD thinking about the cleaness and difficulties of negotiation with Taiwanese landlord. About the rent for living in BORDERLESS HOUSE, the information is as below 😉 -Private room:          12,500~15,000 NTD -2 Females room:       9,000~9,500 NTD -2 Males room:             9,000~9,500 NTD -3 Females room:        7,900~8,800 NTD -3 Males room:             7,900~8,800 NTD -4 Females room:        6,900~7,900 NTD -6 Females room:        6,700 NTD You can get more information by setting Search Preference on the website!

■ Utility fee (Water, gas, electricity)

The electricity fee is expensive in Taipei. It exceeds 1,000 NTD/month in summer period. Water is cheaper and it costs around 200-300 NTD/month. If your house has a kitchen, gas fee costs around 200-300 NTD/month. In Borderless House, utility fee is 800 NTD/month including electricity, water, TV, gas and internet fee! (The electric power consumption in summer period would be high, so utility fee for May. to Oct. will be 1,200 NTD.)

■Phone / Internet fee

If you install the internet in your house, it costs around 1,000 NTD/month. (Some landlords kindly include internet fee into the rent.) You can use tethering by your cell phone and it costs around 800 NTD/month. But some tenants just buy a prepaid card in order to save money and you can get it in around 300NTD.

■Food budget

One of the big expence of living cost is a food budget. There are many restaurant in Taipei and it’s really cheap. Many of tenants spend around 150-300 NTD/day for food&drink. Break fast：around 50 NTD Lunch：50-100 NTD Dinner：50-100 NTD Drink：20-40 NTD

■Transportation

The tansportation system in Taipei is very convenient and cheap. An one-way metro ticket for the Taipei Metro (MRT) within Taipei City costs about 20NTD. There are also rental bikes (called “U-bikes”) provided by the city where the first 30min costs 5NTD. As you can see you won’t spend much money on transportation.

■Toiletries

Initial costs for daily toiletries such as toilet paper, hair shampoo and hair conditioner might be high but once you have them you will get along with the above mentioned amount of money. Moreover, in some drug stores there are special offers where you get two products for a price of one, so again, sharing with your housemate will help you safe money! ■Leisure Activities
Leisure Activities approx. 1000-3000NTD/month This depends on how much you go out with your friends. A famous leisure activity in Taipei called “shrimp fishing” for example costs around 300NTD per hour. At Taiwanese taverns called “熱炒” (re chao) you can get plates for 100NTD, so count in around 500NTD for a dinner. We also hold seasonal events for all the tenants in Borderless House, which you can have fun and meet new friends with a low budget! Check our events review below: –Go hiking together~enjoy the fresh air on Jinmian Mountatin! –Sharing your Stories in our Christmas event with our tenants! –Everyone was able to bond and become closer! – Board Games Event ■Conclusion Living costs per month in Taipei is around 24,000 NTD – 30,000 NTD.
-Rent 8000-15000 NTD
-Water, Gas, Electricity fee 1000-1700 NTD
-Internet/phone 800-1000 NTD
– Food 4500-9000 NTD
-Transportation fee 800 NTD
-Toiletries 500 NTD
-Leisure Activities 1000-3000 NTD
You can fully enjoy your life in Taipei for 24,000-30,000 NTD/month and if you go to local restaurant or shops, you can save more money! Let’s enjoy your life in Taipei with Taiwanese and people from all over the world. ⇒Share House list of Borderless House in Taipei