2月6日,星期一。 天晴。
Today was the fifteenth day of the lunar month, and we hired a car to take us to 基隆, which is one hour away on the northern tip of Taiwan.
When we reached there, an annual event/celebration was going on, where there were fire crackers, people and fishes. Apparently it was a festival to wish for a bountiful catch for the whole year.
Prior to reaching 基隆, we stopped by midway to view an illustration on the awesomeness of typhoons which are quite frequent in Taiwan.
Our main destination at 基隆 was the 野柳 Geological Park, which is the residence of a cute princess and an elegant queen.
The naughty princess loves to leave her glass slipper around by the sea.
Our next stop was the number one tourist destination in Taiwan, the mountainside old town of 九份。
九份 was a place caught in a time warp, with narrow cobbled streets, uneven steps, shops right out of a period China 王飞鸿 movies and lots of lanterns.
There were a lot of unique food to be sampled, such as popiah ice-cream, grilled mushrooms and taro tang yuan.
In the evening we proceeded to 十份,a place near the rail tracks where folks can release 天灯。As it was 元宵节,the place was full of people. Unperturbed, we squeezed in and joined the fun.
We stayed till the night as there was a festival where a thousand lanterns were be released simultaneously. It was a wondrous sight and a very special end to CNY.