The 2020 Sea of Flowers in Xinshe opened on November 14. The theme for this year is “Love You, Love You.” The event will last 23 days, ending on December 6. Members of the public are welcome to attend. The opening ceremony for the Sea of Flowers in Xinshe was attended by dignitaries including Council of Agriculture (COA) Deputy Minister Chen Junne-jih, Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station (TSIPS) Director Chang Ting-lin, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen, Members of the Legislative Yuan Chiang Chi-chen and Kao Hung-An, Taichung City Councilors Joyce Jan and 張瀞分, and Xinshe Farmers’ Association General Manager 羅文正. Honored guests went onstage together to throw out bouquets of flowers representing love and togetherness and to assemble large 3D numbers “2020” symbolizing “Love You, Love You,” thereby formally launching the Sea of Flowers in Xinshe activity. COA Deputy Minister Chen Junne-jih stated that the main work of the COA is not only to promote “the production of premium quality agricultural products” at the level of primary industry, but also to endeavor to develop secondary, tertiary, and even “sixth” industries, and in-depth rural leisure and tourism can be said to be the best representative of a “sixth industry.” He thanked the Taichung City government for their cooperation with the COA over the years in creating the beautiful display space of the Sea of Flowers in Xinshe, and he encouraged travelers to show their support for premium mountain town agricultural products through action and to come out to experience in-depth tourism in mountain areas.

TSIPS Director Chang Ting-lin stated that this year the Sea of Flowers covers 50 hectares, mainly laid out in a simple open design, to avoid having people crowded together in closed venues, which has the double aim of boosting rural tourism and preventing the spread of Covid-19. Everyone is welcome to attend together. Visitors can enjoy the 16-hectare large “scenic broadcast-sowing area,” including the sun hemp (Crotalaria juncea) field, four colors of garden cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus), and six colors of elegant zinnia (Zinnia elegans), as well as geometric rose patterns made out of different flowers on land forming romantic decoration. There is also a “herbaceous flower area” exhibiting more than 200,000 colorful herbaceous flowers. The arrangement of the flowers in circles puts flowers within flowers, and conveys the beauty of love, fitting right in with this year’s theme of “Love.” The educational and entertaining “edible landscape area,” meanwhile, displays mainly leaf vegetables and plants of the nightshade (Solanaceae) family as well as 28 kinds of aromatic and medicinal herbs, and is well-suited to family visits.

Of the four main themed areas at the event, besides exhibiting the lily industry achievements of Taichung mountain towns in the “lily exhibition venue,” there are also diverse and exciting displays in the “Kinmen niche products area,” the “young farmers’ special area,” and the “mountain town agricultural products promotion area.” These allow visitors to go beyond just admiring flowers to also being able to get an in-depth knowledge of the hometown of the Sea of Flowers and experience different rural tourism styles. This year’s “2020 Taichung International Flower Carpet Festival” is built around the theme of the children’s story “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” and will reproduce many of the story’s main characters and scenes, including a Cheshire Cat which will gaze down on the fields of flowers from the air and a ten-meter tall Queen of Hearts, which will be there as people come for a fantastic exploration of flowers. It is hoped that the “Love You, Love You” Sea of Flowers in Xinshe activity will be a grand occasion for families traveling together.

This year’s Sea of Flowers in Xinshe event will include four weekends. There will be traffic restrictions in place around the venue during the event, and we ask people who want to go to Xinshe to use mass transportation. In coordination with this year’s activities there will be two special shuttles on working days and four shuttles on weekends, to make the trip to the Sea of Flowers as fun as possible. We invite the public to check out the latest information about the event on the Sea of Flowers in Xinshe official webpage (http://flowersea.tw) or on the event’s Facebook fan page (https://www.facebook.com/xinsheflowersea/posts/1542044602623531/).