People pictures

Some of Group G - my lantern buddies


Ivy, an exchange student.

Two intrepid Teachers in Taiwan!


Me in my Mount Royal College Cougar garb with the temple's resident feline. Looking quite outbackish as I was told! The hat was a gift at registration time.

The quintesential Taiwanese pose by Annie, one of the other participants.

Every good temple photo-log should inlcude one of these:

A picture I actually paid for by buying one of the flower wreaths. It was pretty and awkward to carry. I gave it away by the end of the day.

Scenery from the Temple Grounds

The Release

My First Lantern: With my wishes, hopes and dreams written on it sails into the night.

Close up of the lighing mechanism. It's cardboard soaked in oil - possibly kerosene? It smells like gasoline. It burns long enough and generates enough heat to send our tissue lanterns far over the river and nearest mountain with no sign of them coming down to earth.

Another group demonstrates how the lanterns are kept on the ground. You can feel the hot air on the other side of the tissue and I suspect the surface tension of the paper is how you decide when to let the lantern fly.

My 2nd lantern with group G. With my wishes and hopes set to sail skyward. If you look closely you can see some of my wishes on the left and top of the photo written in pink marker. The purple lantern symbolizes the hope for WISDOM.

Beautiful Gantu Bridge

This is the bridge over the river where we set off the lanterns.
It's a stunning sight at night. All the LED's on the bridge sparkle brighter than the stars.
The Taiwanese have perfected the art of light and the colours on the bridge change every few seconds. It was certainly a beautiful place to let my wishes sail into the night sky.

I was able to capture these with a 2 second exposure, a steady hand and the help of a park bench.

More Temple Scenery

Building Phase

This is bad lighting with odd timing. I took this picture at precisely the same time as another one of the foreign photographers... hence the overexposure. This is the master lantern maker showing us how to glue the pieces of the lantern together.