Wonderful Taiwan Finale – Lantern Festivals

We ended our time in Taiwan at their spectacular lantern festivals. Held two weeks after Lunar New Year, these festivals mark the end of the the New Year celebrations, the first full moon of the year, and the return of spring. We joined this celebration by releasing our own lantern, participating in the Pingxi mass lantern release, and attending the Taiwan National Lantern festival in Chaiya. We spent our final day in Taipei at the Azalea Festival and Jianguo Flower Market. This was a fitting end to our Taiwanese journey, the celebrations and festivals were amazing and so much fun!

Releasing Our Own Lantern

The only place to release paper lanterns daily in Taiwan is on the the active Pingxi Line Railway that runs down the middle of Shifen Old Street. A train came through right after we released ours and people scrambled to get out of the way. Each lantern has four sides and you get to choose between many colors that have specific meanings (we picked: red = happiness/health, orange = love/marriage, blue = work/goals, yellow = money/success). We wrote our wishes using bamboo paint brushes with black ink, stood on the train tracks, and released it into the sky. The pictures below show our preparations and the scene at the railway. Many people were releasing lanterns, it was fun to watch everybody having a great time!

Below is the video of our launch. It was such an amazing experience!

Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival

That evening we went to the Pingxi Sky Lantern Square, a large parking lot in town, to participate in the mass release of lanterns. We felt fortunate to get tickets to this two day, popular activity. The coordination was incredible with many volunteers helping thousands of participants launch lanterns with wishes written on them. Over 150 biodegradable lanterns were released in groups every 20 minutes. It was amazing to watch them all go up and drift through the night sky!

Taiwan National Lantern Festival

After the paper lantern release at Pingxi we went to Chiayi for the Taiwan National Lantern Festival. There are no paper balloon releases, but there are parades, lit sculptures, activities, and a huge night market. It took us two evenings to walk through the venue, and we still did not see everything. The creativity was impressive. Below are some lanterns showing our favorite foods: coffin bread, xiaolongbao, and hot pot.

We were walking towards the exit one night and luckily saw people lining up along the street. We stayed and enjoyed a parade of amazing floats and a dragon dance!

There was a national competition among students, companies, and organizations for the best sculptures. It was fun to wander around the entries and see the stunning displays. Themes incorporating the Year of the Horse were very popular.

Azalea Festival

We left Chiayi and made our way back to Taipei where our Taiwan journey had started. We got there just in time to see the annual Taipei Azalea Festival held in Daan Forest Park. The stars of the show are the many azaleas, but there are many other beautiful, spring flowers to enjoy as well. The gardeners outdid themselves with the gorgeous and creative displays.

Jianguo Flower Market

Near Daan Forest Park is the massive Jianguo Flower Market. It’s held every weekend in a covered parking lot that stretches 1/3 of a mile! We were impressed by the variety of unique plants we had never seen before. The bottom two pictures show kitchen utensils used as planters.

Time to Leave Taiwan

After so many fun adventures in Taiwan it was unfortunately time to leave. We were there about 2 months and honestly could have stayed longer. We really enjoyed exploring this beautiful country and meeting friendly and interesting people. (Shout out to Jane who runs the Before Sunrise B&B with her shiba inu in Hualien, and the owner of Siangting B&B near Alishan; both of whom took us in and provided us with amazing experiences.) But it was time for us to move on to Okinawa, Japan and follow the spring season north. Our blog will continue from there.