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The Lantern Festival (元宵节) is annually on the 15th day of the lunar year, this year February 21, 2008. Yesterday my Fo Guang friend Aaron and I, after buying textbooks for our upcoming classical Chinese course, met up with Michelle and Jerry in Taipei to check out the lanterns at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Jerry took us first, though, to a casual but very authentic Japanese restaurant, famous for their eel. (Here’s Michelle and Aaron, below:)

Many of the lanterns at the festival were not of the traditional variety…

…but more “artful” ones. Some were made by school teams…

…some were made by elementary school kids…

…and some were the joint effort of a high school and a “Beer Team.”

Many had mice on them, as it is the year of the rat. And then there was this one…

The Memorial Hall was lit up with lanterns and Hollywood lights, and there was a huge glowing orb out in front. Maps described it as the “main lantern,” but really I personally wouldn’t call it a lantern at all. The orb was made up of plastic mouse-shaped balloons that lit up.

Down the street, the festivities continued near the Taipei City Hall, which lit up the streets right under Taipei 101. We all had a great time and enjoyed the lanterns.

It’s been two weeks now since Chinese New Year—I suppose it’s about time to write up the final adventures of my New Year break. My friend Andy from college who is Taiwanese-American came back to Taiwan to celebrate the New Year and invited me to tag along.

Day 1: New Year’s Eve

The adventure began now three Wednesdays ago, when I took the high speed rail down to Kaohsiung (高雄). Andy showed me around the city a little bit (including the nearby temple with the European-looking knight) and we had the traditional New Year’s Eve dinner, which is one of the most important parts of the New Year. We all stayed up watching TV (and the adults playing Mahjong), then Andy and I then set off some fire crackers at midnight.

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