Taipei Lantern Festival attracts one million visitors

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on February 13, 2006. It features Taipei City's Lantern Festival, which took place at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Over one million people were estimated to have participated in the festival to view the various lanterns on display. Many local and international visitors even began lining up in the area in the early hours of the morning.

When the main lantern was lit in the evening, about 600,000 were there to witness the event, setting a new record. Accompanying the event was a half-minute light and sound show and a four-minute performance by a theatre troupe. In addition to the lantern show, Penghu County's Tien Hou Matsu Temple also donated a lucky symbolic turtle made of propitious-sounding foods. The turtle weighted 3,600 catties (2,160 kilograms) and attracted nearly 10,000 visitors.

The lantern festival also features other activities such as artistic and cultural performances, displays of handicrafts and a total of 24 theme-based lanterns. A total of 100,000 small handheld lanterns were given away to children and other participants of the festival. These lanterns featured the image of a dog, as well as other those of other important landmarks of Taipei, including the Taipei 101 building, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial and the Miramar Ferris Wheel.