Nik


you can put anything here

Friday, October 14, 2011 @ 1:02 PM PERMALINK

We had initially decided to go to Yangmingshan or Beitou but had met two Singaporean brothers, Minghui and Furen at The Meeting Place and found out  that they were heading to Pingxi to release sky lanterns on Sunday, which we had initally wanted to do but didn’t think was feasible.

So we rather shamelessly asked if we could tag along
(I know, I have no shame. To be fair, they invited themselves to Hualian with us too. Which..okay was to our benefit again since the taxi cost so much less that way. WIN-WIN situation okay?)

We woke up pretty late and couldn’t do much before our train at about 3pm. Minghui and Furen decided to go cycling before we headed to Pingxi and us girls were not sure if we were up for it so after googling and looking through some of the tourist guides in the hostel I thought we could head down to the local Jianguo Weekend Flower and Jade market.

The flower market is about a 10 minute walk  from Jian Guo metro station.

According to Dave (and many travel forums and guide books) the Taiwanese enjoy hitting the weekend flower and jade markets to buy items for their households. Both markets are separated by a four way crossing (one of the best things about Taiwan after its 7-11s) and are great places to see how locals enjoy spending their weekends.


The entrance to the Flower market






And the entrance to the Jade Market, just across the street

The Jade market is really more of a craft market where art pieces and traditional Chinese decorative items can be purchased. Apart from art, other traditional items such as tea, snacks, crystals, chopsticks and incense holders are also on sale here.





We walked past a free pottery experience where people could sign up for half an hour on a pottery wheel to make vases and bowls. Sadly, the waiting line was 2 hours long so we didn’t get to try our hands at it.

There was also this one lady that made items with tiny dried flowers and leaves. Everything was done with such precision. There were card holders, rings, cuff links, earrings and even lamps. Too amazing.

The flower market is a great place to see the locals interact with their families. It seems like making a trip down is a total family affair (pets included).

The variety of plants and flowers available is pretty mind-blowing for a city-dweller like me and in true Taiwanese style a lot of them are made to look super cute or pretty like the cactuses below.






How pretty are these floating plants right? 

After the markets, we headed back toward Taipei Main station to get on our train to Ruifang (you have to change trains at Ruifang to get to Pingxi). We got on the train just in time and were seated when we saw the two boys run to the platform and miss their train. Thankfully the next train was in about half an hour so they didn’t have to wait long.


Ruifang Railway Station


Us on the train to Pingxi

There were a lot of people headed to Pingxi to release sky lanterns and the train ride from Ruifang to Pingxi was beautiful. We passed Shi Fen and Juifen which both looked like they were worth visiting. Shi Fen is where this beautiful water fall and drop bridge is located and Juifen is where A City Of Sadness was filmed.

Neat fact: Downtown Juifen was used as a model for 'Sprited Away' as well.

Pingxi itself is a quiet little town that still retains its old world architecture and most of the visitors flock to the sky lantern stalls right by the train tracks. There are signs everywhere that tell you not to walk in the track but people often get super excited and stall owners have to shout warnings each time a train passes (this is in addition to each oncoming train’s super load horn)







For 100NT, you can get a plain colored lantern, multi coloured ones are slightly more expensive (120NT if I’m not wrong).

Each colour is supposed to represent a different type of wish ie: Green for money matters, red for happiness etc. We just went with the traditional white ones.

We explored Pingxi for a little bit and bought cute cloth souvenir lanterns from a family run shop a little down the road.







There are a ton of stalls opened for dinner but we didn’t get the chance to try them out as we were caught up in exploring and sending up our own lanterns.

We started to see lanterns being set off from other nearby towns and it was such a pretty sight.







 We also came across a celebration for the town and Minghui and Furen actually went to investigate and came out bearing gifts (which they later gave to some people we met at the train station who came from out of Taipei City on a company outing)


Moon Festival celebrations in Pingxi, look at that queue!

I tried very hard to keep to the tradition by writing my wishes in Mandarin (when in Rome right?) but I am a complete failure at it. Minghui and Furen tried to help me and I even got some help from a local old Taiwanese lady who must have been very amused at these foreigners using simplified Mandarin to write. She came to tell me that one of the characters I wrote was wrong and even taught me how to modify it without cancelling the word. (For the record, I was told to write the wrong character by Minghui so its not my fault at all)


One of Kah's sides of the lantern



Can you spot the error? HAHA, not bad eh my Mandarin writing skills. Don't mock


This is the second side I did, I gave up on the mandarin and submitted to writing in English


This is how close the train comes to where all the people preparing their lanterns are, pretty nerve-wrecking huh?

Also!  it is not easy to fill up the space on a lantern; each lantern is pretty huge and has 4 sides (which we almost neglected to realise). Even though Kah and I shared a single lantern, it still took us ages to fill up our two sides each.

The people at the shop are always helpful even though they are super busy and are quick to top up ink, flip lantern sides and prep the lanterns for release should you manage to get a hold of them.

Its pretty surreal to watch your lantern get released into the sky, it feels like its really on a destination to a higher power ; even though sciencifically it will probably only travel to a certain altitude and burn up.

Ours hit a bit of a snag because we didn’t know how to release it properly. We had also almost wrecked it earlier because we used too much ink and when it dried, it stuck the sides together making it hard to open up without tearing.

Thank god one of the shop helpers noticed that we were totally making a mess of things and ran to our aid before we burnt up our own lantern.





I always assumed that sky lanterns were powered by some kind of solid fuel but as it turns out, they are simply powered by a burning pile of joss paper, fitting I guess considering they are really prayer/wish lanterns.

We were undecided between having dinner at Pingxi or catching an earlier train home but opted for the latter and decided to later explore Raohe Night Market again to get some food.

We meet the same group of Taiwanese people on the train back and they were playing ukulele and getting the train conductor to pose for pictures with them. (Coincidently, we met them again at Raohe)


These people were on a company trip out and were super cute! they were writing songs about Pingxi and posing with this train conductor because they'd seen her every time they got on the train. 

We had some time between trains at Ruifang and dashed out of the train station to get something to eat. I got some homemade tau huay with yam toppings and the boys bought this dish that was supposed to be a local specialty. We were also entertained by the fireworks being set off for Moon Festival.


Super hungry! 

Once at Raohe, we embarked on a ‘eat everything that looks nice’ expedition. We ate fried dumplings, fried crabs, mango ice, hot and sour fried fish balls, candy strawberries, tofu chicken pieces and I waited 15 minutes for this awesome cheese baked potato.




Kah's fav street food - spicy fishballs 


These strawberries are covered in this candy coating that is SO SO sweet. Its impossible to finish them by yourself, they are super pretty though. 

While we were waiting for the potato, the boys decided to try this traditional healing method where you get hit lightly on the upper half of your body using multiple thin flat reeds. This not only helps relax you but also allows the person doing so to get an idea of your overall general condition.



Carrying my prized potato home, we got home to find our hostel giving out free beer for Moon Festival and people preparing to go out again for the night (partly to because it was Stephan’s last day in Taiwan). We wanted to go too and were given 15 minutes to get ready before heading out.

On Hong’s recommendation all of us headed down to Space which is less than 10 minutes from our hostel. At Space (as with many other Taiwanese clubs, I heard) the entry you pay entitles you to a drink coupon that you change for a glass which is refillable the whole night for free.

Of all the things to be happening that night, it was metal night, needless to say, the music left a lot to be desired but the alcohol was cheap and it was too late to head anywhere else.

After pitchers of vodka and whisky and several trays of tequila shots, we girls called it a night and the guys went back to continue the party. I fell asleep on the sofa to the sounds of the cooking of cup noodles (I don’t know how they managed that) before heading back to my own room to sleep.

Labels: Taipei, Taiwan, travel

Post a Comment