Pingxi lantern festivalThis was the only date that I had fixed to work out our itinerary but as it drew nearer I did start to think that it was going to be a lot of hard work just to get to this festival, which entailed a couple of trains and a bus up into the hills for this huge festival that is held at the end of CNY
Everything we read about it said that it was really packed out.
But we wanted to go to see some other villages on the way so we thought we'd go.
Pingxi lantern festivalThe second train journey was quite busy but the crowds were all really good natured and it all seemed ok but very hot.
We could see that there was plenty of shuttle buses running down the valley so decided to stay to see the release of the balloons which they did in large groups.
It was really well organised.
I'm not really a lover of the damage that these things do to the environment but have to admit they did look fabulous all going off together.
Apparently the villages get together to clean up all the dead lanterns after the festival.
We decided to get the bus back to Taipei instead of the train and the organisation was amazing. There must have been a bus every 2mins going down those roads and it was over an hours journey and you didn't have to pay! Plenty of helpers directing people to the buses and all waving joyfully when you got on .
2-28 Peace ParkA memorial to the native Taiwanese who died opposing the Chinese gov.
101 TowerThis used to be the tallest building in Taiwan.
We didn't bother going up as it was too cloudy
