Sky Lantern Time

To say this post is way overdue would be a huge understatement so I'll just skip all the excuses and get right to it. Let me start by saying that when I first started considering the possibility of coming to Taiwan, instead of China as I had originally planned, one of the first things I did was go straight to google, type in Taiwan and clicked on images. A lot of the pictures that popped up were of an annual event called the Sky Lantern Festival that happens at Chinese New Year. I won't say that's what sold me BUT it was definitely one of the first things on my Taiwan bucket list. So by time Chinese New Year rolled around I was super excited. Unfortunately the official festival was in the middle of the week when I had to work and no where near where I live. But I did finally get to go to Pingxi the week after and partake in the sky lantern tradition. Because it was still around CNY season there were a lot of people there doing the same but not quite enough to see the sky as full of lanterns as the picture I'd seen. (see what I mean here http://www.commercialappeal.com/photos/galleries/2012/jan/28/day-pictures---january-28-2012/48410/) Nevertheless I had an awesome time and was so excited to check off something else from my list.

Here are some pics of the lantern festivities and the cute little town, Pingxi, where we spent the day.

^Painting our lantern. You get to chose out of 9 colors of paper lanterns and they all have a different meanings like romance, good luck for school/tests, growth, hope and of course money. We chose the most traditional: red for good fortune (that should cover everything right?).

There were more lanterns in the sky but most of the pics that I got didn't come out too great because it was raining. But it was definitely a beautiful sight to see all the glowing lanterns floating in the sky. Some even had fire cracks tied to them, which actually was more scary than anything.


I hope every one is enjoying the beginnings of another beautiful Spring season!

God bless,
^_^ Ashley