Day 8 ~ PingSee Lantern Festival and Tofu Dinner

The morning of day 8 was quiet, we were all able to sleep in after being out late the night before watching the fireworks from Taipei 101 for the new year.  In the afternoon, the group ended up at a large arts and crafts store featuring art and small gifts that resembled the art we say the previous day at the National Palace Museum.  I was able to find some postcards there to send to family and friends.  After the store, we headed up out of Taipei into the mountains to draw on and light lanterns with our wishes on them in anticipation of the new year beginning.  After winding through the mountains on some very narrow and harrowing roads, we wound up in a small town packed with people.  Food vendors lined the streets, and people painted on large paper lanterns next to the train tracks that ran through the center of the main road of the town.  Two people were able to share a lantern with four sides total.  I shared one with Mary and we definitely had room to spare on our lantern.  Lighting them and pushing them into the sky was done quickly and efficiently with the help of local officials who tried to keep things moving along for everybody.  The lanterns were beautiful, and the idea was fun, however, burned out lanterns littered the trees and hills in the surrounding countryside below the town.  We knew where our wishes would actually end up, hanging from the trees.  The drive back down the mountain was just as scary as the drive up, and landed us in an unfamiliar area of Taipei, an area known for its congregation of tofu restaurants.  The food was definitely interesting, and while it wasn't my favorite of the meals I've had since being in Taiwan, it was impressive to see all the different ways tofu could be prepared and incorporated into a dish.  We had at least 9 different dishes featuring some type of tofu on the table, not including rice.  After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and called it a night.