鹽水 Yanshui, a town north of Tainan, is home to one of the most unique festivals I've ever been to.
The Taiwanese who take part in the festival believe that the more you get hit by the fireworks, the more luck you will have in the next year.
Around the festival you will run into some huge apparatuses loaded with fireworks called 'beehives'. Then some Taiwanese people will bring in an deity, light fake money on fire for their ancestors and light the fuse. This is followed by a shower of explosive rockets, burning holes in your clothes and causing you to jump around.
This kind of festival would never fly in a place like the United States, which is one of the reasons I really like Taiwan; things like this can happen.
I decided to tape my camera bag up with a cardboard protectors, which only led to me having a box and camera bag filled with dead fireworks. Somehow the fireworks even ended up in the smallest nooks and crannies of my camera bag, which now carries the essence of a campfire. The most important thing was that my friends and I survived the ordeal quite well, aside from a nose full of black snot. I'm surprised i didn't pull a firework out of my ear.
So if you are ever in Taiwan, head down to Yanshui（鹽水） near Tainan（台南） around Lantern festival time and you can have a very lucky year.
