Taipei Must Visit : Shifen Waterfall and Pingxi Lantern

Its only been few days in Jakarta, and i miss Taiwan like crazy. What do i do these few days is only swiping through my photos on my phone, reminiscing and smiles on many of it. Never thought that Taiwan will leave a big mark in my heart.

5 days before i flew back to Jakarta, two very good Taipei friend of mine brought me to see Shifen Waterfall and to fly lantern at Pingxi district. This two places has been inside my bucket list when i reached Taiwan. Thank God i can make it before i came back, eventhough there are still many places that i could not manage to visit. Hopefully fate will bring me back again to see the other part of Taiwan again someday.

Shifen Waterfall 

Located at Pingxi District, New Taipei City, is one of the most famous waterfall in Taiwan. This place is only 45 minutes away from the bustling Taipei (if you are driving), and around 1.5 hrs if you take public transport (Take 1076 towards PingXi from MuZha Station *brown line*).

It is really nice to enjoy the natural sceneries that Taiwan offers. Well, i guess Taiwan has a lot of natural sceneries to begin with. haha. So, Shifen is one of the place whereby you can hang out with your friends and families, breath fresher air, do some trekking maybe and take pretty pictures!

ShiFen Waterfall is not very tall, since it’s only 20 meters tall, but i guess it’s pretty wide, with 40 meters width. Well, i dont really understand about how this waterfall formed geologically.. what i know is it’s pretty beautiful for me to see. *grin*

*Introducing my tour guide of the day. Lili Jie Jie and Ahan Ge ge. Thanks for driving me and showed me around*

After walking around at ShiFen Waterfall area, we quickly made our way to PingXi district to fly the lantern. ShiFen Waterfall and Pingxi District are located next to each other. So you can safe your time by going to one area and get both attractions.

You can easily walk from ShiFen Waterfall to PingXi Old Street District. It’s pretty far for the Indonesian people who dont normally walk, but i got used to it, since i always walk back in Singapore and walk a lot in Taipei too. haha.

*The Bridge to walk out from ShiFen*

After we walked about 20 minutes, finally we reach PingXi Old Street. The Old Street is very unique in their own way, looks very historical and authentic to me. It feels like you’ve been dragged to the old Chinese Movie like IP-Man. haha. Too bad it was raining when we reached there, so i was too lazy to take some pictures in that small street with many umbrellas in it. =(

Decided to have some lunch first in that small alley and head our way to the Lantern shop! There are many lantern shop in that area, especially the area in front of the train tracks. We randomly chose a lantern shop that was quite crowded. Asked them how we to buy the lantern. And it is very fascinating that they has a lot of colours to choose from. Each represents your wishes. Like what colours is for friendship, love life, career, health, etc. They have colour combination as well for you who has many wishes, or you can just go for one colour if you think you only ‘need’ that particular luck, like life partner for example. hahaha. You can take your time to choose your lantern colour, they have a long list for you to choose from.

After much consideration, we finally chose Yellow + Orange + Green + Pink lantern (NTD 200 = SGD 8.5) that symbolises our wishes for Wealth + Marriage + Success + Happiness. hahaha.  Well, since 5 of us who went there are still single, so i guess it’s quite appropriate to ask for this four. hahaha.

Rain was still pouring that day, not heavy though. We already buying so much time, waiting for the rain to eventually stop. But too bad, it was still drizzling. So we decided to just go out from the shop after we finished writing our wishes to fly the lantern.

But before that, picture times! Haha, so the guys at the lantern shop helped us in taking all the below pictures. He escorted us to the railway and directed us on how to hold and arrange our standing position. Honestly all of us are quite satisfied with all ghe photos. Guess he’s already used to it and master all the cameras (since we use sony nex c3 and iphone camera) haha. And what amazes me more is, he can took a video of us while capturing our photos as well. Too damn professional already! Haha.

Sadly when we about to fly the lantern, the train is about to pass as well. So they guy asked us to move away from the trail. Nice picture, still. But i guess it will be much nicer when you fly it on the railway. hahaha #banyakmaunya.

Nevertheless, i was so happy that time. It’s like releasing your prayer up to the heaven. haha. I told one of my guy friend that i was so happy about it, and he was like ‘i was just okay when i released it’ haha.. I guess it’s just more of a girl thing? or Maybe it’s just me.. I always think that releasing lantern will be such a romantic thing to do. Again, maybe it’s just me who watch to many of ‘Na Xie Nian’ – Taiwanese Movie. haha. But i would love to go back and fly that lantern with my future partner. hahaha. #cewekpolll

*Oh btw, Taiwan has yearly Sky lantern festival or known as Kong Ming Lantern which is believed as a day whereby we can write our wishes and pass it to the gods above. Normally they fly thousands of lanterns at night, in mid February. I missed this moment, since i went back to Jakarta that time =( But i heard that it will be so troublesome to get your way back home after this event.

Super Romantic, isnt it?? Feels like we are inside Rapunzel / Tangled the movie. hahaha.

pic source : event-carnival.com

But the setback is, this lantern may cause harm to our environment. =( Heard that even though they are using paper and ‘biodegradable’ materials, the wire inside the lantern may take 9 months to break down, and the paper itself – the biodegradable ones still need 4-8 weeks to break down. Hopefully the manufacturer will think of some other way to make this more environmental friendly.

Anyway, as for the lantern wishes, We pray that we have all the happiness in the world, success over our career, overflowing blessings from the Above, and special anointed prince / princess charming for each of us! #BigFatAmen.. hahaha.

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” – 1 Corinthians 2:9

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