Unlike my last blog, this one will be short…actually. Lanterns are better seen than talked about, so enjoy the pictures!
After the family had left, the celebration of the Chinese New Year was still in full swing. So, Lakyn and I decided to go visit two of Taiwan’s most famous lantern festivals. The first one was the Taipei Lantern Festival. This festival is a contest. So all the lanterns are handmade and someone will win. But, they’re all on display for the New Year and it makes for one awesome scene. It kind of reminded me of driving through the Eight Days of Christmas…just lights everywhere…except we had to walk through this one. Check it out!
The next week, we took off Thursday afternoon from school and headed to the Pinxi Lantern Festival. This festival is the most famous one in all of Taiwan. Getting there was a bit of a struggle (as always) but we finally made it up a very steep mountain on a very scary bus ride. The weather wasn’t great, but it was the last day of the festival and we were told by so many people that it was a must see. But, it ended up being okay because it never actually rained…just kinda wet in the air (typical Taiwan). Lakyn and I wandered around for a while. The street was like a big night market full of really cool stuff and we could see people painting and setting off their own lanterns. At first, we didn’t really get it. In pictures we had seen hundreds of lanterns going off at once, but here all we saw were the few scattered lanterns people had been setting off. But then…IT HAPPENED! About an hour after we got there, we saw all the lanterns getting set off! We were too far away so we spent a solid 15 minutes getting through the hugest crowd of people, right into the front. It was magical. I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. It was so beautiful. They set the lanterns off eight times. At the beginning of the night, I said I would watch them once and be done…because once you’ve seen them one time, why would you need to keep watching the same thing over and over? Well…I did. I watched every single time. I couldn’t turn away. It was mesmerizing and stunningly beautiful. The pictures don’t do it justice but theyre pretty cool too!
Then, Lakyn and I decorated our own lantern and sent it into the sky. Perfect way to start my (Chinese) New Year!
