The Taipei Hot Springs Season Festival opened yesterday in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), with discounts, special activities and performances on offer until next Tuesday.
Beitou is one of the oldest of the nation’s major hot spring resort centers with a history going back to the Japanese colonial era, Taipei Department of Economic Development officials said.
Because of this history, the district is known as Taipei’s “Little Japan,” the officials said, adding that to highlight the district’s history, this year’s Hot Springs Season Festival opened with a fashion show of Japanese bathing gowns.
The festival is to showcase Beitou’s fusion of traditional Taiwanese and Japanese culture, with free performances of Japanese nakasi music and traditional Taiwanese opera.
The concerts are to be held tomorrow night and Monday night in Qixing Park (七星公園) next to Xinbeitou (新北投) MRT station.
The festival also features a variety of free craft activities showcasing traditional Taiwanese culture, such as flower twining (纏花), a traditional Hakka art form that creates artificial flowers and leaves by weaving threads around slips of paper, the officials said.
For those willing to wait in line, there are also free traditional sweets, such as dragon whisker candy (龍鬚糖).
Various hot spring resorts are to offer discounts over the course of the festival, and there are to be special buses to take visitors around the district over the weekend.
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