Fireworks Festival
The Taiwanese seem obssesed with fireworks. It must, at least partly be because the Chinese were the ones to invent them. I never knew there was such a thing as the fireworks festival but apparently there’s one every year on the wafer front on Danshui River. Or is there? Doesn’t matter. A few junior high classmates said they were going and asked me if I would come. People sure did turn out in the masses and the queues at the food stalls were the longest I’ve ever seen. Now, who would line up for half an hour just for piece of fried chicken? It was smart of my friend to suggest that we eat before going.
The highlight of the night was easily the “Will you marry me?” act put on by a couple a few minutes before the actual fireworks. This guy dresses in a suit in rather humid weather, stands on a stool with a bouqeut of flowers and a large neon lighted sign saying “XX would you marry me?”. Stands there on his mobile for at least 15 minutes while hundreds of people wait for his girlfriend to come. The girl comes and obviously says yes, all pre organized but still something you don’t see everyday!
The fireworks themselves were actually pretty good. I got to see some new ones that I’d not seen before. They were being fired from a few different spots and we unfortunately had a tree right in front of us so each time either the left or the right lit up, you’d get this large swarm of people shuffling right or left to get a glympse of the sky. The shuffling was then followed by ooos and aahhs. Don’t remember anyone going ooh or aah at fireworks in other countries, guess it must be the Chinese!
Going home was a nightmare, as it always is with these kind of things, but this time it really was actually quite bad. They didn’t close the roads near the exits and because we had to all squish out of watergates in the walls it meant it took half an hour to go 50 meters. Anyone for H1N1? Perfect situation to get infected, must not really be the scare that it’s meant to be. Worse than Times Square on New Years while it lasted because of the humidity! I’d always rather be freezing than burning up.