Twinkling lights illuminate the capital.

In Beijing, a colorful lantern festival has become hugely popular, attracting many city dwellers.

The Beijing Expo Park Lantern Art Festival, which kicked off on January 15, is now being held in the city's northern suburban district of Yanqing.

Under the theme of "Gloomy Flower Dream," the festival features 170 sets of large-scale lighting installations and some 3,900 lanterns.

Visitors can admire the exhibitions while walking along its 3-kilometer-long sightseeing route at Beijing Expo Park.

The fairy lantern is the largest and most distinctive of all the lanterns. It was built using smart technology that enables the fairy to blink at visitors.

The Lantern Festival, also called the Yuan Xiao Festival, is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated nationwide. It falls on February 5 this year, marking the first full moon of the new lunar year.

The Lantern Festival signals the end of the Spring Festival celebrations. People celebrate it as the last hurrah in various ways: lighting and appreciating lanterns, eating sweet rice balls, setting off fireworks, and guessing lantern riddles.

On the evening of the festival, streets are decorated with colorful lanterns and light installations.

Andreea-Diana Manolache is a Romanian undergraduate currently studying at Tsinghua University.

Born in the Year of the Rabbit, she hopes that viewing the lanterns will bring her good luck. "This year I need to be extra careful and I need extra luck. So, hopefully, this will give me the protection that I need," she said.

The festival and its exhibitions are here for a long run and are scheduled to wrap up in mid-October.