Hey smooth operator, it has been too long...
The weekend after our scooter drip, we attended the sky lantern festival in Pingxi (Taipei county). It was a really awesome festival. Both Tim and Cliff's favorite festival thus far.
We caught a bus from Taipei zoo to Pingxi in the mountains, which took about an hour to get there. The main objective of the festival is to send your wish to the God/Gods. This diety doesn't use the old skool postal system, or the middle skool fax system, or the new skool twitter system, so the Taiwanese invented this lantern system to get there message across.
Don't wait for those eyelashes to fall out, or those shooting stars to shoot, and forget rubbing dog's tummies! Come to Taiwan and take these 5 easy steps to make a real wish:
1. Buy a hand-made paper lantern (about the size of 2 black bags).
2. Write your wish on the side.
3. Add the "ghost money" (soaked in paraffin) to the bottom of the lantern).
4. Light the ghost money, and let the lantern fill with hot air.
5. Send upwards into the night sky, so that it gets closer to God and he can read your request.
Note: Add some bling to your lantern (for extra attention) by attaching a firework, just before you set it off. Tricky but worth it.
Wish granted.
Yeah, we were lame and didn't set off a lantern, because it was so crowded and chaotic. But it was just beautiful and hypnotizing watching thousands of miniature hot-air balloons swirl into the black void.
In one area, they set off a whole bunch of lanterns in go, and play epic music as they set off. See the video above, or watch it in better quality on Youtube at this link:
This was a massive lantern that they set off. The president even made an appearance (or at least, I think it was him), and write his wish on a Lantern.
It was all dandy and dreamy, until we went to catch the buses back to Taipei. It became negative and nightmarish as we saw the thousands of people waiting in the queue for buses, and realized that we were never going to make it back to Taipei in time to catch the last train back to Hsinchu.
We decided that it was pointless waiting in the queue, so we started walking the 20km walk back to Taipei, hoping that we could hitch a lift, or catch a taxi, or join a bus. There were a whole lot of other people trying the same thing, without any luck. It was a Sunday night and Tim was working the next morning at 10am, so we started to stress.
I wished that by some crazy way we could magically get back to Taipei, for last train...and that wish came true! (even without the use of a lantern!). We randomly stopped at this temple, and somebody that stayed there gave 7 of us a speedy lift back to Taipei on an alternative route, and then we sprinted to catch the metro (underground), and galloped to catch one of the last trains, as we breathed a big sigh of relief.
On the morning of the sky lanterns, we stopped by the Chang Kai Shek Memorial hall, and went to see the Fine Arts museum in Taipei (below).
They were doing some construction work at the museum, so we got in free. There were some beautiful large prints from five Taiwanese artists, and some random knitted things creeping out of tents and bent doors. Tim is hoping to go back in the next couple of weeks, because there is an exhibition on for Richard Rogers Architects.
The construction workers weren't shy about using the brand new pink chairs for a midday nap, while the valuable art sat on the floor next to them.
A quick wrap of the last two weekends:
We went to see lots of kites at the harbor nearest to Hsinchu, We watched some movies, We went to Neiwan for a coffee, little walk, and hot springs with Tom and the Cornell Crew.
Spring is here, buds are growing on the trees, and its mostly enjoyable weather.
Keep operating smoothly! Cliff and Tim
