Releasing Sky Lanterns at 十分 Shifen, Taiwan

This is part of the fun Taiwan travel series. View the full itinerary here.

For our last stop of the day, we hopped over to Shifen Old Street to release sky lanterns.
As it was getting dark, we didn't manage to visit the famous Shifen waterfalls.

Shifen is about 30 minutes way from Jiufen by car. You could also get there by hopping on the Pingxi train line (get down at Shifen station)

It's a small town spanning across a railway track,  with shophouses on both sides of the track. One could walk along the track. Yes, there are real trains every hour!

 

Shops either sell snacks, souvenirs, or provide sky lanterns.

You could opt to buy a lanterns in a single color, 2 colors, or 4 colors. For a different price of course. Each color is supposed to symbolize a different energy. Very smart right...

The shop owners have perfected a system of releasing sky lanterns so basically each shop has a slot on the railway track. Visitors would first write their wishes on the lantern by the side of the track.

Then they would wait for their turn to release the lanterns from the track. While we were getting ready, we heard a loud whistle. Everyone got off the tracks at once! The train has arrived.

Well that was fun to see a real live train pass by just a few feet away. And so everyone waited for the train to pass by and walked back to the tracks. There goes our sky lantern~

How to go to Shifen:
From Taipei Railway Staion, buy a train ticket to Ruifang station.
Take the Pingxi train line. Alight at Shifen train station.

Previous: Jiufen | Next: Zhuzi Lake, Yangmingshan

This is part of the fun Taiwan travel series. View the full itinerary here.