April 19, 2015

Yuanshan Flower Expo Park Lantern Festival

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Travel, Wordful Wednesday Lanterns, Taipei. Taiwan

A 3D Horse lantern

the 2015 Taipei Lantern Festival at Taipei Expo Park was one of the places that R and I visited during Valentine’s Day weekend this year. The last time we saw such lanterns was back in 2012 when we went to the Lukang Lantern Festival with Tiger girl.

The lanterns on display in Taiwan were certainly very different from the ones that we see around Chinatown during Chinese New Year or the mid autumn festival. These lanterns are made by students and are all entries in the best lantern competition.

One of the exhibits on display.

Children as young as elementary school students are encouraged to take part in this competition. As you can see from the picture above this was one of the entries done by a group of elementary school students with the guidance of their teachers.

An under the sea exhibit

Each lantern was built based on a theme as you can see the one above was filled with different sea creatures. Don’t they look cute?

Sheep lanterns

There were many lanterns which were created to look like sheep as 2015 is the Year of the sheep.

Another sheep display

Three sheep with auspicious blessings.

Sheeps besides a model of the iconic Taipei 101

A huge cuddly sheep

I like this one the most as it looked like one which I wanted for myself. If only it came in a soft toy version. I certainly would purchase one for myself 🙂

A Dog Train lantern.

Besides sheep there were lanterns based on various cartoon characters like this Dog head train.

Roller coaster lantern

Some lanterns were built to resembled part of an amusement park like this roller coaster shown here.

A carousal lantern

Circus exhibit lanterns

Even the circus clowns were represented among the different lanterns which were on display in the park.

A pumpkin carriage

Fairy tales and Folk tales were the featured themes for some of the lanterns. I saw Cinderella’s carriage on display while walking through the park.

Lanterns based on folk tale.

I can’t remember off hand which story these characters were depicting but it was certainly nice to see them in traditional costumes.

Have you been to a lantern festival before?

April 13, 2015

Of Shades of Pink and White Roses

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Wordful Wednesday Flowers, roses, wordful wednesday

Light pink rose

Roses are one of my favourite subjects for photography. The last time I took pictures of Roses was during a visit to the Flower dome at Garden at the bay 2 years ago. Prior to that we saw Roses when we visited Everland back in 2012 as there was a Rose exhibition when we were there in South Korea.

Light pink bloom

During our Valentines Weekend trip I managed to snap many pictures of Roses as there happened to be a Rose exhibition in one of the parks that we visited.

Pale pink rose

There were roses in many different shades of pink. They also came in assortment of sizes and varieties.

Cluster of pink roses

There were easily 50 different types of roses in that small enclosure and it set me off on a frenzy taking photos almost every 2 meters or so when I spotted a bloom of different color or texture.

A cluster of baby pink roses

This cluster of roses had a really lovely hue of baby pink. It certainly would make a great center piece in a crystal vase.

Light pink roses

The same bunch of roses at a different angle and processed differently .

Dark Pink Bloom

Another shot of the same bloom from a different angle

I tried getting different shots of the same flower by adjusting the focal length and my position while capturing the bloom. As you can see it does look very different from the two shots captured above.

A purple pink rose

I love this shade of pink/purple. It’s really pleasant to the eyes and I wouldn’t mind having a whole vase of this color rose to adorn my dining table at home.

Pink Rose

The roses in the garden were regularly sprayed with water so that they were kept in their pristine condition.

A white rose

This was not your traditional shaped rose. I don’t know what the specific name is as the roses in the garden didn’t have any labels next to them so it was hard for me to identify them.