President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday opened this year's Taiwan Lantern Festival for the Year of the Snake in Taoyuan, lighting up this year’s main lantern, Infinite Paradise, near the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Taoyuan Station where the festivities are being held.
The 18m-tall lantern was designed by artist Akibo Lee (李明道), who merged the infinity symbol with geometric shapes to “create a futuristic theme park brimming with technological flair,” said the Tourism Administration and the Taoyuan City Government, which co-organized the event.
During the opening ceremony in the rain, Lai said that thanks to collaboration between the central and local governments across Taiwan, the annual festival, which is held in a different city or county each year, has become a major attraction, noting that foreign media has described it as “Disneyland without roller coasters.”
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
In addition to the main lantern near the high-speed rail station, the Taoyuan City Government opened the “Lights Playground” event around the nearby Taoyuan Sports Park Metro Station on Friday last week.
Both events are to have light shows from 6pm to 10pm daily before concluding on Feb. 23.
Lantern displays have also been set up in the city’s 13 districts.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Tourism and Travel Department
Meanwhile, in New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪), Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) was joined by Kazuyuki Katayama, Japan’s chief representative to Taiwan, and crowds as they released sky lanterns on this year’s Lantern Festival, which marks the 15th day of the Lunar New Year.
Despite the rainy weather, Hou and Katayama wrote well wishes on two large sky lanterns in the shape of a snake’s head before releasing them, the New Taipei City Tourism and Travel Department said.
Yesterday morning, in the coastal area of Yehliu (野柳) in New Taipei City, residents performed the annual Lantern Festival ritual of Yehliu Harbor purification, with worshiers carrying deities on palanquins jumping into the sea and then walking in bare feet on a pile of hot coal after they returned to land.
The century-old ritual has been performed to pray for fishers to bring back a good catch and for their safe return, according to the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area Headquarters.
In Kaohsiung, as of Tuesday, the city’s Kaohsiung Wonderland event had recorded more than 5 million visits since it opened on the first day of the Lunar New Year on Jan. 25, the city’s Tourism Bureau said in a statement yesterday.
The wonderland stretches from the Kaohsiung Port Cruise Terminal in the south, across the Love River (愛河) to the Pier-2 Art Center in the north, with local hotels seeing high occupancy rates ahead of Valentine’s Day tomorrow.
It is scheduled to conclude on Sunday, the Kaohsiung City Tourism Bureau said.
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