That night that people most look forward to, that night of fireworks and fun... that night is nigh! That night is of course New Year's Eve, and whether we speak of the heralded fireworks show in Sydney, the fame crystal ball of New York's countdown in Times Square, the Joya-no-Kane ritual of Japan's Buddhist temples with its 108 bell chimes to purify the soul... all the world's lands and peoples have their own special celebrations and ceremonies. Taipei's contribution to the international party is its Taipei 101 New Year's Eve Fireworks Show, a bright extravaganza of bursting light that attracts revelers from around Taiwan and overseas alike. This year, to ring in the centenary of the founding of the Republic of China and to celebrate the ongoing success of the Taipei International Flora Expo, the Taipei party is being expanded to two sites in a collaborative spectacle to be seen across the Taipei sky, both well worth your presence.
A big party is planned for New Year's Eve along the riverbank at the Flora Expo's Dajia Riverside Park Area to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Republic of China. Jointly arranged by the Executive Yuan's Council for Cultural Affairs and Council of Agriculture in tandem with the Taipei City Govt., the deep-night soiree, which will launch at 11:30 pm, has a performance theme that brings together high-tech, fireworks, flowers, and creative originality. The skyline along the Keelung River from the Grand Hotel to Dazhi Bridge (大直橋) will come alive with bright bursting light—the most“nature”-ally gorgeous of stages!
The celebrated founder of Taiwan's Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集), Lin Hwai-min (林懷民), has been invited to serve as coordinating consultant for the spectacle, stage-lighting master Lin Ke-hua (林克華) is serving as artistic director, and renowned artists such as Chinese demolitions artist Cai Guo-qiang (蔡國強) and France's Bruno Schnebelin, artistic director of the performance company Ilotopie, are lending their creative input. A fantastical visual feast will seamlessly weave together earth, river, and sky along with landscape, technology, and art, and on the world's largest-ever water curtain, soaring 200 meters high, the iconic sunrise over Taiwan's Mt. Ali (阿里山) will be played out, the folk songs of Taiwanese natives will resonate with the natural world, and sizzling fireworks will criss-cross the heavens. This will be an event of thunderous sound and vision, and of true earth-shaking pleasure.
Last year the big carnival-like New Year's Eve party outside Taipei City Hall drew nearly 760,000 happy folk, and this year promises to be even better—as always. The main theme here is also the ROC centenary, and on the stage that evening birthday ambassadors and a hundred favorite songs from the ROC's hundred years of history will be presented. A who's who all-star cast of entertainment celebrities will also grace the stage, and to top everything off at the stroke of twelve an especially gorgeous and glittering fireworks festival over and surrounding the Taipei 101 tower is in store, raucously clanging in the ROC's hundredth anniversary with a bang—quite a few, actually.
Because of the expected number of party-goers, there will be traffic controls in effect around Taipei City Hall and throughout the Xinyi Planning District (信義計畫區), with private motorized vehicles prohibited. Get there by MRT or bus; the MRT Taipei City Hall Station is close at hand, and note that because after the fireworks an enormous crowd will converge on the station, a good idea is to walk to the next station along the line, which won't be far.
The entertainment, countdown, and fireworks will echo across the Taipei sky this New Year's Eve at the city's two big party venues, joining the chorus of joy that goes up in cities around the world. Each New Year's is a time of new hopes, and whatever hopes you harbour, what is guaranteed is that having you in attendance at this year's extravaganza will bring you lifelong memories.
