Taiwan’s Lantern Festival is just the best ~ I love it! It’s one of my favourite festivals every year. There’s so much colour everywhere, and this year I was especially delighted to welcome my good friends from the UK, Nicky and her daughter, Harriet, to visit Taiwan during the Lantern Festival. Fortunately, they were very happy to come with me to visit all the lantern displays we could find, including the main Taiwan Lantern Festival, this year held in Chiayi. As it’s the Year of the Horse, there were horse lanterns everywhere, plus lanterns featuring local scenic spots like Alishan and its mountain trains. Lanterns always look best at night, lit up in the dark, so we got there at sunset, and although we could only be in Chiayi for a few hours, we still saw so much, even Super Mario!

For Harriet, this was her third visit to Taiwan – she scores as number one on my visitor list, I think she’s the only person to come and visit three times! Her first visit was in the summer of 2014, aged 16, with her father, Mike, to celebrate the end of her GCSE’s. On that trip, we attended the Diocese of Taiwan Youth Camp and visited my friends on the Penghu Islands, and we finished with a few days at St. James’ Church, Taichung, and a trip to Sun Moon Lake. There are lots of old photos from that trip (see the highlighted links above), showing everyone looking very young and energetic at the youth camp, and many of the same people appeared again this time, reconnecting with Harriet. Harriet came again, for her second visit, 2 years later, in 2016, this time with her mother, Nicky, to celebrate the end of her A-Levels. We went on a round-Taiwan tour and met lots of lovely people. This time, 2026, a whole decade later, Nicky and Harriet came for a week, March 9-17, and we stayed mainly in the Taipei area with day trips out and about, seeing old friends and making new ones! This time too, Harriet’s younger brother, Peter, is doing his medical internship in a hospital in Tokyo, so they decided to come here for a week en route to spending some time with him in Japan. Check out these few photos from their previous visits, visiting Bishop David Lai, Advent Church and St. James, Taichung…

I first met Nicky and Mike sometime between 1993-96, when I was living in Dodoma, Tanzania – they came to visit some of my colleagues, and we became friends. Later, I visited them in Liverpool, and then, when they moved to Durham, they joined St. John’s Church, Neville’s Cross. Through that connection, St. John’s Church became one of my very supportive CMS link churches, and they still are – this report is of my previous visit there in November 2022. Nicky was ordained priest in 2007 and, since her retirement from the NHS, serves as Chaplain for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Community in the Diocese of Durham ~ it’s such a meaningful and valuable ministry. Mike is a Lay Reader, former churchwarden and now secretary to the PCC, and before retirement was a Civil Engineer. He’s very keen on trains and all things mechanical – so we thought of him when we saw these train lanterns in Chiayi…

Harriet is Networks Development Coordinator at the UCL Students’ Union, London and both Nicky and Harriet shared about their work with the young adults group at St. John’s Cathedral, Taipei, last Sunday, and of course, it was really interesting, with a focus on working to include everyone. They also came along to meet the children at St. John’s Cathedral Kindergarten, joined everyone at our Student English Bible Study for a Bible Study on Jonah, and attended our cathedral English service and book club. We also visited Bishop Lennon Chang and everyone at the diocesan office, where we joined the staff lunch celebrating March birthdays (which included Nicky!), also Rev. Keith Lee and Good Shepherd Church, and Rev. Simon Tsou and St. Peter’s Church, Chiayi. It was great to meet so many people; thanks to everyone ~ and special thanks also to Sandy, Claire, Ah-Guan, Anne, Alice, YC and many others who gave them such a warm welcome!

We also visited the Taipei City Lantern Festival, this year held in 2 different locations, Ximen and Yuanshan (though we had no time to visit Yuanshan, so some of these photos were taken a few days earlier)…

The Lantern Festival marks the end of the Chinese Lunar Year celebrations – but many of the decorations are still up and there’s still lots to see and do in Taipei and Chiayi ~ like the azalea and hydrangea festival at Da’an Park, and even eating wasabi ice lollies at Hinoki Village, Chiayi!

We did make 2 other trips out of Taipei ~ on Saturday, we went up to the Yangmingshan mountains above Taipei, to see the cattle and do a little hiking up to Mt. Zhugao (830m), plus bathing our feet in the hot springs…

And then on Monday, we went with Claire to Jingtong, Pingxi (famous for its sky lanterns) and Shifen Waterfall, a trip along the old coal railway line which Harriet had done in 2016 and really enjoyed. The weather was stunning, and we had such a good day!

Much of their visit was taken up with laughing ~ Nicky and Harriet are such good fun, and Nicky is so entertaining, she has a great gift of being able to laugh at herself ~ and yes, it was difficult to keep a straight face for much of their trip! As one of my friends said, it’s not often a daughter gets on so well with her mother that she wants to travel with her halfway around the world, just the two of them together, and they’re still laughing after the first week in each other’s company! We loved having them to stay – thank you both for coming and for all your support over the years – and wishing them well as they travel on to Japan!