Taipei 101 will ring in the New Year with a six-minute fireworks display, the longest in the history of the annual event, as part of a show that will also include simulated animation, organizers said yesterday.
The theme for the event will be “Happy Together,” with the fireworks show, which starts at 11:59pm, using a T-Pad display of about 140,000 light-emitting diodes that covers the 35th to 90th floors on the north side of the building, the organizers added.
Due to recent concerns over air pollution, the fireworks display has been cut from 30,000 to 16,000 rounds, said Chen Shih-ming (陳世明), president of Taipei Financial Center, which operates the landmark building.
Photo courtesy of Taipei 101
The use of LED displays and multimedia special visual effects will make it possible to celebrate the New Year in a more environmentally friendly manner, Chen said.
Taipei Financial Center spokesman Michael Liu (劉家豪) said that Taipei 101 has followed Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) proposal that the New Year’s Eve celebration should be spread out over a longer period than just one day.
Taipei 101 has set up a Facebook fan page — 2018 Happy Together — in which people can submit New Year’s greetings and good wishes up to a maximum of 16 Chinese characters for posting on the T-Pad display from Dec. 2 to Dec. 21.
Taipei 101 selects 272 winners every day and displays the messages between 6pm and 10pm.
On Dec. 22, Taipei 101 will put on a special show of all the selected greetings from the past three weeks.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai
RSS