preface:
on this day, i took about 200 photos...
on the whole trip i took 500+ photos..
which means on this day...i took almost 50% of all the photos on the trip...
therefore, i can only select some which helps me to tell the story...
even though there are many more which i'd love to upload and share cos they are so beautiful..
but...blogger is just too slow with photos upload...


21 Feb 2008
day 6 - ping xi 平溪 - shi fen 十分

the day started rather well, with a yummy breakfast and no rain! yay!!
after breakfast and complimentary coffee from the very kind boss of 明通雅舍，
we head off to the railway station to take a train to shi fen 十分


a random pic along the way to the train station. seriously, any angle in ping xi is a good shot.

pretty mosiac pic at the railway station


quick quick! take a pic before the train runs me down! -_-


the mummies chatting animatedly on the train...good thing they can self entertain, leaving the 3 of us young ones free to take pics and relax :P
***************************************
in case u are wondering why we chose to go to pingxi-shifen, 21 Feb is actually 15th day of lunar new year (元宵).
and on this day, there is a huge celebration in pingxi village 平溪乡 called TianDeng Festival.
In open areas of bigger towns like shi fen, ping xi and jing tong 菁桐, crowds will release their tiandeng to pray and wish for a smooth year ahead.
and in shi fen, on yuan xiao, hundreds of tian dengs wil be released at one time, which the area is very famous for.
in fact, taiwan's yuan xiao festival is celebrated hugely around the country.
of them all, the 2 most famous ones are 盐水蜂炮 in tainan yanshui town 台南盐水镇 (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/鹽水蜂炮)
and tian deng in taipei pingxi village.
hence, there is the saying 南蜂炮，北天灯。
from what i know about the feng pao, u need to wear protective gears because the firecrackers will actually shoot in all directions towards the crowd. so unless u watch from afar, multi-layers of good, protective clothes is a must.

but anyway, our main aim of going to ping xi village during this time is to witness the tiandeng festival.
***********************************************
arrived in shi fen and so happy that the weather is fairly good :D


love taking pics with railway tracks, especially like the intersection in the back..with the mountains in the background....

we spent the day walking around shi fen and visiting a few of its famous spots.

one of the "attractions" in shifen is the railway track which runs right in the middle of 2 rows of shophouses. so instead of crossing streets, u cross the railway track...


here comes the train *honk honk*


that ah mah isn't too worried about the train or the noise...


when the train is gone, the track functions like a normal street...as well as a photographic background for many tourists

shi fen's sights is as good as, if not better, than ping xi. probably cos it's a bigger town, there are more bridges over streams and canals, forming photogenic shots everywhere...

no canal in sg will look this clean and scenic.

one of the many suspension bridges


close up of the 4 ladies posing on the bridge...

pretty much like ping xi, almost any angle is a scenic shot...lush greenery, flowing water and rapids, bridges, broadwalks etc etc etc...
i'll the pics do the talking...

i stood here for a few minutes just to listen to the sound of water crashing over the rocks. not too loud like a gigantic waterfall....just enough to soothe and calm...







walking along the broadwalk that runs along the river/stream. mummy looks very calm and zen..or maybe she's just too sleepy to pose :P


smoothly flowing water with minimal disturbance to its surface. a different kind of calming effect...and i really like how the mountains are reflected in the water...


still on the broadwalk. if you look carefully (pic abit small), the water is actually very clear..can see the river bed

at the end of the broadwalk, we reach the first of the waterfalls we came to see


眼镜洞瀑布 (eyeglass cave waterfalls?) named so cos of the waterfalls through the middle of the 'cave' that made the cave look like a pair of eyeglass


closed up shot of the waterfalls


bridge over running water (is that a name of a song?) with the waterfalls in the background. i took a few pics from this angle..this is one of my fav...

after taking pics here, we continue a short walk to reach the famous waterfalls in shifen
十分大瀑布 (an interesting name...it can be 'shi fen's big waterfall' or 'a waterfall that is pretty big'...haha)
it's so famous, it needs to be protected and so must pay entrance fee to go into the 'waterfall reserve'. not too ex..about SGD$10 i think...


why is it famous? because it's taiwan's BIGGEST curtain waterfall. width 40m, height 20m and depth of its pool is 15m. i think i read somewhere that it is coined 'asia's niagra falls'...

on the calmer side of the falls. u can see a bit of the spray in the background, just above my head -_-


a shot of the calmly flowing water with the drop leading to the waterfalls


my fav shot of the famous waterfalls. the falls is pretty huge cos of the long and heavy rain the day before. during a dry spell, it doesn't look so intimidating with less 'ferocious' falls


a closer look at the falls. those 'blurry spots' are actually water droplets on my camera lens from the huge amount of spray generated by the falls. cannot really see the different layers of the falls cos so much water...


an even closer look. the sound was deafening. i had to shout to my mum when she was posing for pictures. i don't think anyone can fall down this falls and not be seriously injured...


i mentioned the spray earlier..this is how it looks like if u look across the pool at the bottom of the falls. blurry spots all over from the water droplets...

i took almost 30pics just at this attraction. luckily it's digital camera..otherwise will needs too many rolls of film....finally, driven by hunger and thorougly damp from head to toe from the spray, we started our walk back to the town area for lunch.

took a few pics along the way cos it was just TOO scenic...even took a few arty pics here and there, but really too many to upload. all i can say is...WOW :)

we had one of the yummiest lunch in shifen. taiwan's fried beehoon is super duper delicious. and it doesn't taste like beehoon, taste more like dang hoon 冬粉. and their glutinous rice (油饭) was super yummy too.... with our stomachs filled and blood sugar back to normal, we headed off to explore the town more...


i think cos the festival, the street market is more crowded than usual. and there are dozens of shop/stalls in this area selling tian dengs...pretty much like ping xi but more populated and less idyllic


one of the stalls had this sign to explain all the different colours and its meaning for the tian dengs. will try to translate from left to right:
white: peace and brightness (??); blue: longevity and prosperity; pink: loving relationship; orange: intelligence; purple: luck; yellow: strike gold; red: good fortune; 'peach red' (??): happy ending (??)
ok, my translation sucks..but something like that lah...

and tian deng is not just something to be released at night...
many people do it in daytime too..cos well, one can make wishes day or night..
and i guess deities are on duty 24/7 anyway :P


this pic looks kinda weird here cos the background is all white...


another one floating past the mountains.

i took like 6-7 pics of a few different colour tian dengs floating past the mountains. it's a different kind of feel compared to seeing them at night. in the day, u pay more attention to its colour, whereas at night, it feels like light of hope is rising into the skies...


higher and higher they float...messengers of hope....
(haha, that kinda rhymed..)

a few tian dengs were released wrongly, and actually caught fire when in the sky before dropping down. quite dangerous...one of them dropped quite close to us..but i wasn't fast enough to take a pic of the burning tian deng in the sky...

so when u hear someone shouting and pointing to the sky, look up and make sure there isn't a tian deng on fire dropping onto your head

while waiting for darkness to fall, we found a coalmine museum and decided to spend the last hour or so of daylight to learn more about coalmining. at the end of the tour, we took a ride in one of their modified mining carts along the old mining tracks...

by the time we reach the end of the ride..darkness has started to envelope the town...and we were on top of a hill! have to make our way down in the semi-darkness to return to the road that will lead us to the site of the festival...

on our way down, i looked up and saw a huge bunch of lights floating past above our heads

kind of look like millions of fireflies here..but at that time, it was a spectacular sight.

the festival has begun!

we quickly descended (or as fast as we can cos there was no streetlights and we had to feel our way down the hill) and made our way to the site of the festival (which i think is a huge field that had a stage erected on one side for the performances)

there will altogther be 12 'waves' of tian dengs to be released. each 'wave' will consist of about 200 normal-sized tian dengs and 1 gigantic tian deng. the gigantic tiandeng will usually be 'autographed' by some VIPs with wishes for the county/province/town etc...

the 'fireflies' was probably the 1st wave that was released...

as we walked to the site, a 2nd wave was released...


no my hands weren't shaking! the lanterns were just moving too fast!

we hurried to get to the site cos we dun wanna miss to see an upclose view of the release. it was super crowded..and there were SO many people there, with their hands holding their cameras up in the air and aiming...

made it in time to see the 3rd wave being released!


taken by YQ, her camera can capture faster than mine so less blur...


up, up and away....no words can describe how beautiful the sight was...


maybe this video can convey a little bit of how spectacular it was to see so many tiandengs being released at one go...

in between the waves, while waiting for the officials to get the tian dengs ready
(FYI, only officials are allowed to release the 200 tian dengs in the field. public can only release them in other areas...)
there will be some performance on the stage...
and then, the 4th wave was almost ready...the comperes were talking incessantly blah blah blah..
and right in the middle of the field, that gigantic tian deng i mentioned was being inflated...


the giant among the dwarves...and everyone got their cameras ready for the 4th wave..


here we go! 4th wave being released and all these people with their cameras up in the air trying to get a good shot


another short clip showing the difference between the giant and the 'dwarves'

after seeing the 4th wave, our lunch was all digested from the walking and 'wow-ing' we did...
so we head back to town (which is even more crowded now) to have dinner..
and everywhere, everyone is either releasing tian dengs on the railway track, or any open areas...and every now and then, there will be the sound of fireworks exploding in the skies..
very very festive...


somehow the train station doesn't look very festive. can see the smoke being 'cut' by the train's headlights. very smoky from all the burning fuel in the tiandeng and fireworks

but the day has wore our energy all off...so we head back to pingxi by train...

after our shower, the homestay's boss invited us down to have tang yuan 汤圆 cooked by his son. yes, eating tang yuan on yuan xiao is a tradition which i think most singaporeans dun really follow..

and so, the 3 young ones went down to have tang yuan and chit chat with the boss and his son. both of them are very humourous and we were kept entertained by them till our eyes couldn't stay open and we kept yawning..

that night, my mind kept replaying the scene of the 200 tian dengs floating up and away into the sky...

and i wondered if the deities can read every one of them before the fuel burns out and those wishes drop back down to the mortal world...

drifted off into another dreamless sleep....

to be continued...