Lighting Lanterns in Shifen 十分

This was on the top of my list of places to visit as I feel the whole atmosphere of this place is quite magical.  A town built right next to the railway tracks where everyone just gathered until the next train rolls in?  It’s insane and something you would never see in North America.

I had wanted to arrive in Shifen around sunset as many people have said that is best time to light lanterns.  It was a cloudy day, but the gloominess added to the atmosphere and I loved it!

We had intended to walk towards the Shifen waterfall but seeing as how it was 30 minutes away and the sun had already set, we decided to just stick around town to release a lantern.  Each lantern colour represented something different and many of them had a different colour on each side.  In the end, we decided to just stick with one colour and happily wrote our wishes on it before releasing it into the night sky.

Shifen really was magical and I wish I had had more time to explore the other places along the Pingxi railway line.  Transportation options made it quite difficult though as we relied heavily on the train and that only came around once an hour.  We made the mistake of not checking the train schedule when we arrived into Shifen and when we were finally ready to leave, we got back to the train station and found out that the train had just departed and the next one wasn’t for another hour, so make sure to check when you arrive to avoid making the same mistake we did.

For more photos, please see my Photo Gallery of Shifen

Getting There
Whether you depart from Taipei or Keelung, you will first need to get to Ruifang Railway Station. From Ruifang Station, take the Pingxi line (平溪支線) for 3 stops to reach Shifen Railway Station.  The journey will take you 20 minutes.  It is a very slow train that was originally built back in the 1920s to transport coal.  It only runs about once an hour, so make sure to check the train schedule ahead of time.