Yesterday was warm and sunny, so we went to the Expo Center for the Taipei Lantern Festival.
It was fun – loads of lanterns, live music, dance performances, and food. It was also very crowded. Brian and I split up a few times and would text to re-find one another among the throngs of people. The first time this happened, I jokingly told Brian that Theo and I were “near the monkeys.” Of course, since it’s the year of the monkey, there were monkeys everywhere!
Oh look! Not only does that last display have an angry monkey in it, but it also has “mad people,” which Theo currently adores, despite our complete lack of encouragement in this area. He also enjoyed the breakdancing ninjas that performed at the festival (nearby several monkey lanterns, of course.)
As part of our trip to the festival, I had planned for us to stop by Maji2 for lunch, since google maps showed it as close-by. Not only was it close-by, but it was actually connected to the festival. Hooray!
Out of the many food options at Maji2, we selected Indian, which was perhaps not very culturally explorative of us considering that we are currently in Taiwan, not India. Oh well. For dessert, Brian and I tried red bean soup with rice dumplings, which was much more culturally explorative since, according to at least one person on the Internet, it is a dessert that is traditionally eaten around the time of the lantern festival. Taste-wise, I thought it was pretty awesome – not too sweet, which for me is a dessert win.
Anyway, it was definitely a fun (and tasty) day out. I imagine the displays would have been even more impressive had we stayed until dark when the lanterns are lit, but we headed back to the apartment before Theo’s bedtime. If you feel disappointed, you can see images of lit lanterns here.