Engadget => Gundam Lantern, 1:1 scale, lights up Taiwan lantern festival
I love the lantern festival in Taiwan and here’s just one reason why… these lanterns are incredible! I’ve argued in the past that, here in the US, local groups should give up the (mostly lame) Lunar New Year celebration and move right to the Lantern Festival. It’s far more distinctive and more of a festive time. (The actual Lunar New Year is a time to spend at home with family.) The Lantern Festival, which comes at the end of the New Year celebration is when everyone gets out on the streets.
As part of a celebration for the Lantern Festival, a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year, the Taiwanese district of Jiayi put up a 1:1 scale model of the original Gundam in lantern form. Traditionally, an animal lantern is used as the central display, but this year a competition was run and as you can see, the RX-78 Gundam lantern won out. Not that the citizens had any choice in the matter: paper sheets have never looked so formidable.
If you can read Chinese, or even if you can’t, here’s another page featuring photos of the construction of the lantern. You’ll have to click on the links to reveal the photos.
Finally, here’s some flickr photos of the Gundam, during daylight.
