The Lantern Festival - A Visual Extravaganza

The Lantern Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar new year, marks the end of the New Year celebrations in Taiwan. In Hsinchu it meant deafening fireworks from every alley and street in the city. Since it was on a weekday this year, Adam and I had to teach and couldn't go to another city to light the paper lanterns that float into the sky like I had hoped to do. Instead, I fought my way through my last class, alternating between trying to speak louder than the fireworks and shaking my head in disbelief that the fireworks were so loud that they were keeping me from teaching. After work we dodged smoke and flames back to the apartment and went up onto the roof to watch the celebration continue.

The next weekend we spontaneously decided to go to Tainan and saw posters all over the city for their lantern festival, which held its final day while we were there. I had seen something about it on television (in Chinese, though, so I didn't really understand), and we decided we should go. As we have found happens with most holidays and sight-seeing spots in Taiwan, everyone descends on the locale at the same time, crowding public transportation and making it far less pleasant for Adam and me. But, as it turns out, this time everyone was right. The lantern festival in Tainan (actually held a 20 minute train ride from Tainan) was a huge food and light spectacular. From the overpass at the train station we could see the expanse of the fair, far larger and grander than we had expected.

The festival was so large that we couldn't possibly see all of it. The maps and information were, of course, in Chinese, but things were definitely organized and grouped into categories. We started with food, getting some great, and not so great, snacks that would typically be found at a night market. While we ate at a large table where small children gawked at us, a huge fireworks display started at the top of the hour, set to music. Luckily we had seats where we could see them while eating and didn't have to push through the crowd.

Next we found an art-y section, with large installation pieces that were all illuminated from the inside, including gigantic clothes hanging on a clothesline and some underwater-ish looking lanterns. After that we moved on to a section that had home-made lanterns that had been submitted for judging. They varied from looking like they were made by small children to looking nearly professional.

In the commercial I had seen on TV there had been a giant rat so next we decided to look for that. It was hard to miss, more that three stories high and between two other monstrous lanterns, the rat even had smaller lanterns inside it that blinked different colors. When we reached the top of the hour again, a dialog began between the huge lantern characters that we didn't understand, but culminated in an ear-splitting organ song that played while the rat began to spew smoke and rotate on its platform. While the song was playing, we also noticed that there was a field of lanterns in rows to our left that lit up and seemed to dance in time to the tune.

Having seen a sign that said “Religious Lanterns,” we next wandered over to see what that might entail. There were lanterns and sections for nearly every major religion, including an enormous Jesus that rotated 360 degrees atop a pavilion that had another Jesus with a flock of animals surrounding him. The Matzu area had smaller figures that waved their arms and turned, and another area had a dragon that you walked through and then stepped over flaming coals as you exited a second dragon head. Adam and I weren't quite sure what the purpose of walking through the dragon was, but we did it anyway. A little extra luck in the new year can't hurt, right? There were so many stands in the religion area we couldn't stop at them all, and we couldn't even identify some of the religions!

Before the clock came around to the top of the hour again Adam and I went back to the field of lanterns so we could stand in them while they blinked. They were amazingly timed and choreographed. After the song that played while the rat turned, the Isla Formosa song was played. Many of you probably aren't familiar with the song that the tourism bureau puts on all of its commercials, but we have heard quite a bit of it here, and were treated to more dancing lights while an 8-minute version played.

At that point we'd spent more than two hours walking in dusty gravel with crowds and decided that, after a quick trip to the bathroom, it was time to return to Tainan. It was easier said than done, though, since we were at the opposite corner of the festival from the train station. Having picked a route back, we then ran into a giant turtle, a lake, a hot air balloon tied to the ground that you could ride about 100 ft. up, and another, bigger, field of lanterns. This larger lantern field had red and yellow lanterns that, from the observation deck provided, spelled out TAIWAN PEACE.

The whole experience was vastly different from anything we could see or do anywhere else in the world and made me appreciate living in Taiwan a little more. It was even worth the pushing and crowding at the train station to go back. Although we took a lot of pictures, like so many other things we've seen and done, the pictures barely do justice to seeing the sights in person.

Japan Part 2 - Tokyo

As you could probably guess, Tokyo was VERRRY different from Kyoto. Firstly, it began snowing almost the second we stepped out of the subway station to walk to our hotel. The snow didn't stick around, but it gave me a real feeling of winter that I hadn't felt in Taiwan.

No matter how close our hotel was to the subway, Adam and I figured that we spent 1/3 of our waking hours on public transportation getting from one sight to the other. We've both visited and lived in other major metropolitan areas, but Tokyo was ENORMOUS. We spent the majority of our time in Kyoto visiting temples and shrines, so we decided to focus on the more metropolitan aspects of Tokyo, not that we could escape them by any means. Since it was so big and we couldn't see it all in our limited amount of time, we made a list of things to do and tried to check off as many as we could. Here, not necessarily in the order we did them, are some highlights off the list:

• As far as the eye can see – for free! Our first morning we went to the government towers, which have 360 degree observation decks so we could get our bearings and check out the skyline. The city stretched to the limits of our sight (and the beginnings of the pollution), and legend has it that on a clear day a person can see all the way to Mt. Fuji from up there. We settled for great views of skyscrapers, parks, and even the Tokyo Tower.

• Brown, but with potential. The Imperial Palace Gardens were the most spectacular gardens we visited in Japan, and we visited quite a few. Even though it was January and there wasn't a lot of green in the garden, the landscaping was immaculate. We were treated to some early flowers and even one ambitious plum tree that had a few buds. Since we showed up close to closing time we didn't get to see everything, but we were glad we had decided to go.

• I guess it's a Japanese thing. After a bit of searching, we poked our heads into a Manga-kissa, where people can rent a cubicle with a chair and computer or video screens, some DVDs, video games, or comics, and even shower up before they head off for home or work. It seemed intriguing enough to seek out, but there wasn't anything to look at other than the racks of movies and the check in counter.

• Wow, it's even bigger than I'd imagined! Since they do it on every travel show and talk about it in every travel book, we had to visit the Tsukiji fish market. We woke up super early in the morning but still missed the fish auctioning. In the last few weeks they have actually passed a ban on tourists in some of the sections of the market, so we were lucky to get to go when we did. The tuna are even more gigantic than I'd imagined, and after staring in awe at the huge frozen headless beasts we explored the wholesale market area. I consider myself fairly well versed in sea life (and sea food), but there were many creatures that I couldn't name as we passed through the closely packed stalls. Adam and I both almost got run over by mini-trucks and tiny forklifts, slipped on the wet and icy floors, and snapped as many pictures as we could.

• Science, animals, and history, all in one building! We spent one afternoon in one of the many museums situated around Ueno park. Not everything had great English signage but some of their displays were amazing, including thousands of specimens of bugs, birds, deer, and even a water buffalo! Another section had interactive physics displays similar to those you can find in other science museums, and one section gave a history of technology in Japan, from computers to cars to robots. Adam's favorite robot was one that would serve tea, then turn around and return to the start once the teacup had been lifted. The docents even let him try it out!

• So many stores, but we weren't there to shop. Famous for the crazy clothes and make-up, the Harajuku district was a must on our list. Even though we had to go on a weekday and missed out on most of the Cosplay and craziness of the weekends, Adam and I got an eyeful of the outfits in the store windows. There wasn't much to do but look, since we definitely weren't there to buy!

• Almost as good as a toy store. The Sony store – 4 floors of electronics that they let you touch! We tried out cool cameras, MP3 players, headphones, laptops, HDTVs, and even got a peak at the Rolly. The Rolly plays music and dances to it (wirelessly, of course), but the entire presentation was in Japanese so we're not quite sure if it does anything else. I hope so, otherwise it's just an awfully expensive dancing speaker.

• It's tall...that's about all. Since I've never been to Paris or seen the Eiffel tower, I was excited to see the Tokyo Tower, which is even taller than it's inspiration. Walking up to it at night was pretty spectacular. It was all lit up both on the structure and from the ground. Unfortunately it's in an area that is otherwise businesses and residences which means there's nothing else to do when you're there. They also constructed a building at the base which kind of ruined the look of the tower. And, it cost WAY too much to go up to the top considering we'd seen the city from a higher vantage point for free the day before. We decided it was a very nice, tall, well constructed tourist trap, but I'm glad I got to see it.

As much as I enjoyed the tiny show of snow on our first day in Tokyo, we got more than we bargained for on the day we left. Approaching Nagoya from Tokyo on the Shinkansen the weather got progressively colder and snowier. By the time we reached the Nagoya station it was a full scale blizzard and all the trains to the airport were running behind schedule and we worried about making our flight on time. Upon arrival at the airport things seemed quiet...too quiet. The snow had gotten so bad that the runways were closed and they couldn't even give us an estimated time to take off. We spent another four or five hours in the airport, but finally made it home in one piece (or, I guess, two pieces...right?)