PingSi, Taiwan – Mar. ’10
About two and a half years ago, when I first arrived in Taiwan with my assignment, I remember I saw a promotional video from Taiwan government about Taiwan tourism, and it showed a clip of hundreds of paper lanterns soaring up into the dark night sky. It was amazingly beautiful and exotic, which was one of the many that dragged me more into exploring Taiwan. Despite not knowing when and what it was exactly, I already made up my mind then to be a part of this festival (PingSi Lantern Festival) while I am in Taiwan.
This year, I finally was able to make it to the famous PingSi Lantern Festival after my 2nd trial since last year; last year, I ended up with Taipei Lantern Festival which is also great but a very different style. Thanks to the information from a couple of my friends, I was able to get there quite easily; I and my family went to Taipei Zoo to take the specially arranged shuttle bus to PingSi, which is a small town in the mountain area about an hour drive east from Taipei.
The “kind of” main event is the one that happens in PingSi Junior High School where hundreds of people gather every 30 mins, from 6pm to midnight, to light their lanterns and send them up to the sky in batch. This is the one that is in all the promotional videos as this is what this festival is usually famous for. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the tickets for this, so had to just watch this event nearby, however, it was till breathtaking. Actually, not everyone get to buy the tickets as they are limited. Instead, most of the people just light their lanterns anywhere in the street, which we did as well – twice for each kid, once in day time and once in night.
The reason I said “kind of” is because, for me, the main event seems more like mingling with people in the street, watching others light their lanterns, walking around the night-market-style food stands and having a little bit of everything…. more like just being part of the “festival” atmosphere seemed more exciting. Since it is a very famous international festival, there were foreigners everywhere as well.
For those who visit Taiwan, and if the timing works out, I highly recommend this one.
I feel so fortunate that we had an opportunity to be a part of this famous festival, especially not knowing how long I’ll be staying in Taiwan.
I am posting some pictures below, however, it seems like a bit challenging for a digital camera to get a reasonably good picture at night without a flash.
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| From 2010 Around Taiwan – PingSi Lantern Festival |
I am glad that you finally made it. It was pretty emotional when I firstly lit up my lantern, even though the wishes weren’t 100% realized. But it’s always nice to keep the wishes in mind. I went to the group activity last year. It was fun to see those lanterns flying to the sky all together. Fantastic work and thanks for promoting Taiwan!!
I figured that you were able to join the group activity from your pictures. Amazing experience isn’t it. By the way we were the only family with nothing written on the lantern.
Nice pictures bring best memories in Taiwan. I’m sure you would be even stronger person in your soul and body with healthy life in Taiwan.
It’s nice you could have different exprences about Taiwan by hang around these beautiful places & cities. It would be 100% perfect memories, if you guys could have chance writing Korean words on the lantern even just kids wrote their names. Keep enjoying life !!
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Kumdo, The Martial Art Of Swordsmanship. | CONFUCIUS said this on April 30, 2010 at 10:51 pm |