I was just outside on my balcony and looked over the Danshui river and saw red lanterns floating in the sky. Very beautiful. If you get a chance, look outside at the sky real quick. I just saw one fly over the full moon (from where I live). Definitely one of perks of living in Taiwan!
I went to the beautiful Kuandu Temple this evening for a few hours.
There was a lot of fireworks and hundreds of these lanterns floating in the sky-people would buy one, write some wishes on them, then light some paper and let the hot air lift them into the night air. They eventually went so high they became red and orange specks in the haze/mist.
I walked to Chuwei Station alongside the river, and saw many of these lanterns (the size of a man when inflated with air)-they ended up in the river, or on the mangroves, and I even saw one beside the MRT tracks. The farthest I saw one was near Chuwei Station, near where the track turns away from the river-much past the red bridge.
Excellent evening with friend.
To Loretta: I saw the yacht anchored beside the bridge, like I’ve noticed often lately. Is that the one you meant when you had the problems weighing anchor? What do you intend to do about it?
I was up at Tiger Head mountain in Taoyuan. There’s a little place up there that was once a garbage dump site that has been converted into a pretty good little park to go to at night. It has some lighting and overlooks the city. I went there to let the dog run around after work tonight. The place is normally popular at night, but tonight was especially bustling. There were alot of people letting the lanterns fly. Heck there was a guy selling them (in hindsight I should have bought one). I bought a hot chocolate, some Chinese sausages on a stick (there were food vendors around as well) and went and sat down on the grass. I enjoyed a nice view of the lights of the city as well numerous colorful lanterns in the sky above. The dog had a pretty good romp around on the grass as well. It’s nights like tonight when I think Taoyuan is a pretty good place to live.
PingXi was friggin awesome. I’ll post the link for the video soon as I convert the canon video to mpeg.
When does it end? I’ll really like to go see it next Monday as it is a holiday. Don’t have time usually to trek up there.
Sorry last night was the uh…last night. End of the festival. Set off 2 balloons myself ($100NT each) and there was a production there. Set off LOADS of balloons at a time. I’ll get cracking on the vids.
As mentioned in another thread, and in my experience, there may still be sky lanterns for a few days in a few locations.
I was at Bitan on a Saturday a few days after Lantern Festival once, and someone was selling them and quite a few people were setting them off. Fireworks too. Good show as you’re paddling the little paddle boats at night. There are signs prohibiting it though.
Anyone wanna go to Bitan on Sat night for a few beers and maybe lanterns if the weather is nice?
Brian
Edit: PS Bitan is the (touristy but nice) ‘lake’ at Xindian MRT station.
It was apeshit down here for a while last night – some MASSIVE fireworks going off and I counted as many as 50 lanterns in the sky at once at one point.
I’d be up for that. What time?
I would love to go, the problem is, I think the weather is going to be crappy for the whole weekend. T-storms. Crap. Still, if Saturday night looks good, let’s go!
Here’s the video for the PingXi Lantern Festival.
imagestation.com/album/pictu … ode=invite
Taken with my Canon digicam. I don’t think you need it, but might need the MJPEG codec. Enjoy!
See how it goes tomorrow. I don’t think I’d be up for it if it was raining. Maybe about 8ish.
Brian