Below are photos from the recent Lantern Festival in Miaoli.
This is one of several parking lots for the event. There were shuttle buses to take people to and from the event. This year’s festival was a lot larger than I had imagined and news reports put the attendance at over 1 million people!
We waited about 15 minutes to board a bus to take us over to the event.
Once we arrived we were hit with an onslaught of very loud music. It was so loud that we didn’t dare venture any closer to it. This is the religious area, with religious-themed lantern displays. Why they were blasting heavy metal music is beyond either of us. We declined to visit this area.
We headed towards the lighted gate up ahead.
This gate looked cool in the approaching twilight.
The gate was also a lantern, as this closeup reveals.
We passed this sign and I snapped it.
This was the main drag.
Along this path were corporate displays.
I noticed something that I have never seen before at such an event, an emergency medical station. A sign of a well-organized event.
More shots along the main drag.
I forget which display it was, but, there was one of those annoying, high-pitched women bantering about something in Chinese, until she saw me. Then the rudimentary English started up as she welcomed me to Taiwan. I really wish they wouldn’t do that.
This place was huge! It went on for days!
We ventured down one of the side streets looking for some food.
The food area was basically like any night market in Taiwan.
We walked up one side and down the other before making any decisions about what to get. We ended up getting some very disappointing mountain pig cooked at one of the aboriginal restaurants.
Returning to the main drag, we approached this large structure.
This was very impressive looking in person. It was a huge cube of red (and yellow) lanterns.
We took a right turn and went inside the area through the “Peace Gate.”
This really looked cool.
We then took a left and went into what turned out to be the main open area of the festival.
They say that Taiwan is the LED capitol of the world, and I believe it!
We weren’t prepared for how large the main area was. The planners certainly did a great job with this year’s festival!
The centerpiece was a towering rabbit lantern, this being the year of the rabbit.
We walked along the outside edge and saw some very impressive LED displays.
The rabbit lantern had a few surprises coming up, namely changing colors from the inside.
We took a walk through the fantasy lantern area.
It might be difficult to make out in this photo, but this lantern is a hive of bees. Very creative.
Suddenly, something started to happen in the center of the main area. The rabbit lantern started turning around slowly and changing colors. Notice the green lasers, which were in abundance this evening.
I’ll show you a few of the color combinations that appeared. There are more shots in the Flickr photo album.
I thought it was cool that they depicted the rabbit wearing headphones.
Hui-chen and I really liked this creative carriage.
Later we saw this LED peacock.
As we walked around, things got more and more creative and interesting.
If you missed the lantern festival this year, perhaps you might want to make plans to visit it next year!
Former field engineer MJ Klein now lives in Taiwan, and writes articles that primarily feature photographs of travels of MJ and wife Hui-chen, plus daily goings on in the bustling island nation of Taiwan, and other places in Asia. Articles feature people, culture, food, situations and sometimes the trials and tribulations of traveling in places such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos and of course Taiwan.
