A Lantern Festival, a Visit to Korea & Vistors from Korea

Since I last posted we have been busy as usual with school and work etc., however, while it is all work and no play for hubby, I have managed to fit in quite a few fun activities over the last few weeks!

The first was a trip that my university organised out to a place called Pingxi to see, and participate in, their annual lantern festival. The school organised buses to take 400 students out to Pingxi (about an hours drive from Taipei) and arranged for us to participate in the lantern festival by being able to sign and release our own lanterns. We checked out the little town of Pingxi and the hundreds of market stalls lining the streets for the festival before returning to the meeting point once it got dark to release our lanterns. We released all 200 lit paper lanterns at the same time which made for a magnificent sight!

Check out the photos by clicking on the thumbnails below.



The following weekend I was off to Korea! My sister Clodagh has been living over there since May last year and as her and her friend Shannon are leaving there this May to go live in Madrid I figured I had better get my butt over there! I scheduled it to coincide with the few days holidays we had at the end of the semester so I was able to fly over on the Saturday night and fly back on the Wednesday morning. We spent two really fun and interesting days and nights in Seoul (amazing city with lots of cool things to see and do - plus a fantastic nightlife!) and then I visited my sister's little town to see what life is like for her. I had a fantastic weekend with Clodagh and Shannon as brilliant tour guides - thanks again girls! :-)

Photos of Korea here:



Just two weeks later I was able to return the favour by hosting Clodagh and Shannon in Taipei! Unfortunately they were only able to stay for a weekend due to their work commitments but we had a great weekend showing them around the city and were sad to see them leave on Sunday. That's not it for the family visits though as next Thursday my parents arrive in Taipei and two days later they are joined by my Irish parents, Judy and Des Nix! We will be hosting the four of them in Taipei for two weeks and we are so looking forward to it! :-) Will let you all know how it goes! :-)