My schedule has been overwhelmingly filled that I barely even have time to open/read emails and of course, update my blog. I just uploaded my pictures from Sunday from the Pingxi Lantern Festival.
Feb. 28/Sunday. It was the most tiring, ridiculous night of my life. Though the sky was beautiful, lit by orange-red lanterns to celebrate the 15th, last, day of the Lunar New Year, I had a pretty horrible night. I won't go into details because I don't have much time, but basically it took us almost 6 hours just to get home--from trying to exit the area, being packed like animal herds, being pushed and shoved and having an old lady grab onto my arm for support, standing in line to catch the shuttle back to Taipei Zoo MRT for a good three hours... It was horrible. Also, the president of Taiwan showed up unexpectedly. The police ordered everyone exiting to stay on one half of the extremely narrow road to allow people entering to make way and for the president and his crew. Then many people were shouting out curse words at the president (obviously people don't like him very much here) and the police. It was crazy. At one point I could barely breathe. I had to tiptoe and stick my head out from the crowd to catch a breath of air.
This festival has been a tradition for many years. The airborne paper lanterns are launched to ward off devils. People write down their wishes, whether to wish for wealth, good grades, to find a boyfriend... then release them into the sky. We rushed to be there in time for the first round--where the lanterns are officially launched all at once, which began at 6pm. There were crowds of people, and people with fancy cameras standing on bleachers--wish I got a spot up there. We shorties had to push and shove our way to the front, and by the 2nd round we got up pretty close to the front! During the first round, once they were launched it's was all oohs and aahs. Such a breathtaking, peaceful scene. Then you see the lanterns slowly dispersing into the sky. We also saw quite a few make their way down...the unsuccessful ones. They fell into the trees, which freaked us out because the lanterns have candles or some sort of fuel cell to allow them to fly. We even saw one leaking gas, above a walkway!
Well, this experience is definitely 'once a lifetime' thing. Don't think I will be back. It was extremely disorganized, left my heart racing and made me think of the worst case scenarios, and not to mention is incredibly damaging to the environment. At least 1000 lanterns were released, and in addition were fireworks after fireworks.
Anyway, here are pictures!
the town of Pingxi is part of Taipei County, but it is in the countryside/mountains. We had to ride a shuttle, standing up, up the super windy road :/
soooo many people!
my dinner, see below
don't worry, it's not an alien. T'is an octopus!
Nice Pingxi pictures, we couldn't get close enough to see a massive release.
ReplyDeleteI've also been meaning to eat one of those octopus on a sticks! I keep finding them right after buying 20 dumplings or eating a massive bowl of beef noodles. One of these days I will make it a point to eat one.