Taipei,Taiwan Evening LATERNS- 1 of 3

The Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival has been held since 1999 and is an important highlight in Taiwan as it has long been used for people to make prayers and wishes. During the Lantern Festival, March each year, lanterns, with wishes on them, cover the entire sky of Pingxi. Local Taiwanese and foreign visitors experience this unique cultural activity of lantern launching all year round.

What fun: We took a bus to Shifen, purchased a lantern, painted on our Wish/Prayer, went to the tracks and let it fly from the train tracks that used to carry coal to the area (yes, the train still runs and we needed to check the schedule before lighting our lantern on the tracks).

We wrote two of our prayers on two sides (RED: Health and Peace, YELLOW: Money and Wealth) and our Israeli friends Eli and Orna wrote on the other two sides. We walked it over to the tracks, the “lantern lighter” person prepped our lantern and lit it and then we took a deep breath and let it go up in the sky over the mountains!Read more