10:14am, rail to Ruifang
I zonked out while Wendy stayed up taking care of laundry last night. Laundry is still damp after two runs through the dryer. We were up at 7:20am to get an early start on the day. Breakfast had a new spread, including an eggplant dish. Drank lots of soymilk. Irene found out there is free wifi in the lounge on our floor! It was right under our noses the whole time, but we didn't know how to read the sign for the webkey. With all my camera gear packed, we took the MRT to Taipei Main Station to pick up the rail. There was a bit of a mystery going in, as to how we would be able to take a train to visit Juifen, then continue to Pingsi for the lantern festival tonight, and return, but Irene was able to figure it out with the attendant. We were hooked up with all our rail transportation for the big day. Upon reaching the platform, we hopped on the arriving train, and found seats for the ~60 minute ride. Almost time to get off now…
8:40pm, rail to Taipei
At Ruifang, we took a bus to Jiufen, a scenic Japanese-influenced mountain town with views to the ocean, and a narrow street full of vendors, and Japanese tea houses. We took our time walking the strip, taking into account food vendors we'd want to stop at later for lunch. There was an ocarina shop where I bought a small wind instrument, just like in the Zelda game.
The guy isn't smoking a cigarette, he's playing a small ocarina. I spent a long time here picking one out...
Cool stores/eateries in Jiufen...
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Certainly an enchanting street, full of color...
It took a good hour to walk to the end of the street, where we decided to go to a tea house. We happened to pick the oldest tea house in town, 100 years old. Our visit was quite long, and well orchestrated by the tea servers, who explained the multi-step traditional process of seeping, priming, and finally pouring the tea into cups. We also ordered some roasted melon seeds to snack on, while sitting in our bed, legs folded, with a tray as a table. The experience and atmosphere was quite top notch, as was the bill. Afterwards, we walked around the clay studio in the basement. Wendy bought a small tea pot.
We had tea at a 100 year old Japanese tea house. This would be the first of many tea tastings in Taiwan...
On our walk back, we stopped at numerous food vendors accumulating small snacks for lunch. I even tried a grilled sea snail, which was surprisingly long when the lady yanked it out of the shell (tip of the iceberg shows). Other highlights were NT10 red bean and rice balls (we ordered 6 to go), squid on a stick, sweet bean soup with colored flavored rice sticky balls, and shaved peanut brittle with cilantro and ice cream, wrapped in a rice tortilla (interesting, but didn't pan out as well as I had hoped). No bubble tea on the premises though.
Check out these giant sea snails on the grill! Who would ever eat those? Me actually. It was surprising to see a monstrous slug get yanked out of the shell. Didn't taste as good as I hoped. A bit on the chewy side...
~3:15pm, we hopped on a bus back to Ruifang, where we transferred to a crowded train towards Pingsi, home of the lantern festival. We had to stand, packed like sardines in a can.
When we arrived at the Shifen stop, we could see lanterns already floating into the sky, though the flame inside wasn't noticeable in the daylight. Betsy wanted to avoid standing on the train later during the return, and opted to head back to Taipei while the rest of us stuck around for the festival. There was an exchange of shoes between Wendy and Betsy, and then the 3 of us strode into the crowded vendor lined lane that led through town. We stopped at a couple vendors, for an egg custard, and some bubble tea (gotta get my 1 per day quota).
People were setting off large flaming lanterns from the railroad tracks (in the large period between trains). We continued on, and decided to make the 30 minute walk to the famous Siphon waterfall, since we had some time to spare/kill before dark. Lots of people were out for the walk too. It was NT80/person to visit the viewing area for the falls. Hard not to pay it when you've made the walk to see the falls. I set up my gorillapod and got some decent milky shots of the falls. Some people were setting off lanterns here too. We saw several spent lanterns falling down into the forest and river, some which tumbled over the falls. Guess the whole "garbage" element of the celebration isn't a concern. One of the lanterns seemed to start a small fire in the hills, but didn't amount to much. It was actually starting to drizzle as we headed back to the main pavilion area.
People were lighting lanterns from the falls as well...
Finally it started to get dark, allowing the lanterns to glow...
More lanterns filled the sky, and we searched for a good viewing point. At 6:15pm, a couple hundred lanterns flooded the sky at once, making for quite a "wow" moment. We walked around for a better viewing spot, but there was too much street lighting that got in the way. We were just deciding to head back, having seen enough, when another couple hundred lanterns rose into the sky again.
Tons of floating orbs everywhere. Then all of a sudden, we saw a couple hundred get released at once, in the distance...
14er cards makes a visit to the Lanter Festival (in the tree). As we were about to leave, another mega lantern release occured...
We figured we had seen enough to get the gist of the festival, and wanted to try to beat the infamous post-festival crowds on the trains out. Plus it was starting to rain, so we made our way back past all the food vendors, fighting to stay together among the crowds, and stopping for dumplings and squid on a stick. The railway platform was packed with people, but we found a spot to sit down on the far end.
After a 25 minute wait (with a barrage of fireworks going off every 5 minutes or so), a train arrived, and somehow we managed to find some of the last seats available, before the car completely filled in with tons of people standing. Our seats made for a pleasant ride, passing through the festive streets on our way out.
I wonder how late this festival goes? Having felt satisfied capturing the experience, we left ~7:15pm to beat the crowds...
At Ruifang, we got off, and were directed back onto the platform for the next train. We were second-guessing if we actually needed to get off the train, thinking the train was probably heading to Taipei. But after a ~10 minute wait, a nearly empty train arrived, where we are currently sitting as I type this journal. The car has since filled up with lots of people standing. Wendy is nodding off…
There is a small dog stuffed into a carry-on bag, sitting on the floor in front of me. 1:06am, Hero House, Taipei Another late night packing. Guess that happens when you have tons of stuff. Researching maps too. Have to figure out how to get out of this monstrous city tomorrow. Leaving ~1/2 our stuff in luggage storage here. Weather looks good for the week. Gotta be up early to get the 8am car rental delivery.