Economic Stimulus

  Taiwan is so smart sometimes.  Instead of handing out economic stimulus checks, which people can just hoard, they handed out vouchers, which they have to spend.  Everyone got $3600 (a little over $100 US) in Monopoly-looking money.  That is everyone except us foreigners.  Even the kids got it!  I wasn’t too worked up because it’s not that much money, but my greed kicked in once I saw all the cool stimulus deals.

At lots of shops, if you spend your $3600, you can get $5000 worth of stuff. 

Or you can get a folding bike (and a bag, I think?) if you give them your stimulus.  I’m pretty obsessed with folding bikes although I’ve never ridden one or really need one.  I might do this if I had a stimulus.  And how cute is the sign?

I think at Carrefour you can get $7200 worth of stuff if you use your stimulus there, but I’m not sure as all I can read on the sign is “buy”, 3600, and 7200.  There are also lots of travel deals, both out of the country and in Taiwan.