Day 2: To HsinChu

HSINCHU/ HIGH SPEED RAIL

To save us some time, we took a cab ride from MaoKong MRT station to Taipei High Speed Rail station. Taking the high speed rail ranked high on my to-do-list. This worked for me as I needed to get to Hsinchu in a hurry. Why? Because today's the last day of the Taiwan Lantern Festival and HsinChu city is about 85 km away. That would have taken me more than an hour to get there. It would be even more challenging when the Lantern Festival moves to Nantou, about a 213km away.

But with the high speed rail, we would arrived at the city using only half the time. Even from end-to-end - Taipei to ZuoYing, with a distance of 355km, it would take the train just 96 minutes to get to the end point. Come to think of it, I was literally flying!

We bought the tickets direct from the station as my wife and I could not predict what time we would get to the station (If you book early online, you can get up to 35% off). I paid NT580 for a return ticket.

LANTERNS

When we arrived, we were treated to a wide display of lights and colours. In truth, not many people would have visited HsinChu if not for this national-level lantern festival. I took the opportunity to look up on how the land where the lantern festival was held was previously used, thanks to Google Map. It was just vegetation. Largely, nearly all High Speed Rail stations are sited quite a distance from the various cities, san Taipei.

There were so many lanterns that we truly got lost within them. Lanterns included those from the local culture such as the indigenious and other dialect groups, cartoon characters, and many other giant lanterns. What intrigued me were the religious lanterns, both Buddhism annd Christian that were on display. I was pleased that religious freedom was on show.

FOOD

The Taiwan Lantern Festival brought together food from all over Taiwan.  We really fed ourselves crazy! Meatball and bee hoon and the super large cuttlefish for NT100 each. We then had a go at the Chou TouFu for a second day running. We also tried a skewered meat - I took the lamb meat and thid smell was definitely not to die for. To wash all our food down and at the same time, to keep our bodies warm, we purchased ourselves a cup of piping hot ginger tea.

CLOSING CEREMONY/ TAIPEI

We stayed till the end of of the closing ceremony. The weather had turned much colder and the wind brought us much chill. Still, we persisted as the fireworks lighted up the sky and it was for the very first time that two sets of fireworks were on display at two corners of the grounds. The music was enchanting and the call of "Taiwan Formosa, the heart of Asia" still rings loudly in my head. Taiwan's Vice President Wu Den-Yih was there to observe the hand over of responsbilities of the 2014 festival to the mayor of Nantou.

We took the last train back to Taipei. I'd thought it might be more appropriate if they had extended the timing instead of making 11:30pm the last train. On the journey back, I found a flip-down hook that allowed me to hang my pullover. I did not know that there is such a thing as a coat hanger within the train. I know, I know, I'm such a country pumpkin right? :P

Arriving in Taipei at about 12 midnight, we took a taxi back to the hotel. Something to note, there's an extra surcharge of NT20 if it's past midnight.