[ May, 2015 ] The main attraction in Shifen in Taiwan is to fly sky lanterns.
This is a kind of hot air balloon made of paper.
People write their wishes on it and let it fly to the sky.
First, you choose the colour of the paper.
Each colour has got a meaning, for example, green is health, blue is calmness, red is love and so on.
You write your wishes on each of the 4 sides of the lantern, which means you can wish for 4 things.
After that, you take the lantern on the railway of the Pingxi Line, which we took to come here.
Then, after taking photos, the staff members light the lanterns and they will go up slowly.
Sure enough, we felt like praying.
According to our guide, Mr.Kou, these sky lantern was used for communication originally during the Three Kingdom era in the third century.
It was a signal fire.
The shape of the lantern is a copy of the hat of Zhuge Liang, the famous politician and soldier in those days.
The one who made it up as a wish-fulfilling device was a recent merchant.
All those lanterns, which tourists fly, usually go to the same area and fall, so there are some dealers apparently who go and collect them.
By the way, they have Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar.
The view of hundreds of lanterns going up in the dark sky is wonderful.
Mr.Kou showed us a photo.
