This year Tung Blossom Festival designs its activities according to the theme, “Treasure the Encounter with Tung Blossoms, and Have Fun in Tucheng.” As from early April, many wonderful cultural exhibitions and activities have been held, including Tucheng Tung Blossom Art and Culture Contest, Tung Blossom Ecological Tour Guide, Tung Blossom Image Decoration for MRT Stations,Tung Blossom Music Feast, Tung Blossom Spirit Show, and so on. “Tung Fun Garden” is the main activity, inviting everybody to come to Southern Tianmu Mountain of Tucheng to experience walking on the Tung Flower Appreciation Trail that is exclusively found in Tucheng. Here visitors can absorb pythoncidere and take a SPA of the nature. Along the hiking trail, there are music, art and cultural performances. After arriving Tung Blossom Garden, visitors can relax their moods, and join the exquisitely planned Tung Blossom Concert. In the Tung Fun Meeting held at southern Tianmu Square, many local-colored features are introduced, including the delicious local snacks and the traditional folk toys for children. People can also have a trial DIY creation of the tung blossom artworks. By Shihbiliao River, there are tour guides giving brief introduction to certain spots. To match with the “Evening Firefly Season,” the leisure travel is designed to contain impressive features, with “appreciation of tung flowers in the daytime and appreciation of fireflies at night.” The citizens of the Great Taipei area are able to experience the natural ecological beauty of Tucheng. As a result, a cheerful atmosphere for celebrating Tung Blossom Festival is contrived. It is hoped that everybody can take MRT to Tucheng to grasp the precious moments of the Tung blossoming and firefly glittering season in early summer. Through the beautiful scene with tung blossoms densely growing all over the hill and fields, the friendship between people shall be easily established.
Chengtian Zen Temple
Tung Trees Tung trees belong to a deciduous arbor in a slim and tall shape. The tree crown develops in horizontal direction. Each layer of branches is grown with dense leaves, so tung trees are suitable for serving as landscape trees and the trees along the trails. Besides, the Tung logs can be used as construction materials and making musical instruments. From tung fruits, the highly waterproof tung oil can be extracted. Tung oil is an excellent material for making paint and printing ink.
At the end of spring, the entire hilltops are covered by Tung flowers, just like wearing a white dancing cloak on the greenish hill. In summer, although the snowflake beauty and softness of Tung flowers disappear, the loud noise of cicadas makes this place extraordinarily bustling. When autumn is near, the yellowish branches and leaves of tung trees add more graceful charm and elegance to the environment. Walking deep in the woods of tung trees in autumn, people can gradually sense the autumn coolness.
In winter, tung trees enter the dormancy period. All the Tung leaves fall on the ground, more clarifying the appearance of trunks and branches. A strong feeling of the change from the blossoming of flowers to the falling leaves is naturally formed in the hearts of visitors.Nevertheless, when carefully examining the change of the four seasons, the blossom appreciators should be able to sense more easily the unique lasting charm presented from tung trees under the seasonal change.
Tung Blossom
Park Built in the midway from Chengtian Zen Temple up to the peak, there is a park equipped with an open-space performance platform,charcoal urn exhibition zone, Chinese tea drinking and resting platform, bird’s view watching platform of Tucheng City, facilities for children, including a triangular suspended bridge, a 3-dimensional climbing net, firefly reproduction zone, and so on. It is really a multifunctional recreational park. In the daytime, visitors can walk on the View Appreciation Trail inside the park to watch closely the nearly a hundred tung trees and prunus serrulata trees, and have a close encounter with their beautiful flowers. At night, they can see the fireflies dance evrerywhere. All of a sudden, they will temporarily forget the troubles in the secular world, and enjoy being embraced by the nature.
