"Dragons Rising and Tigers Leaping, Excitement for Both Jiangsu & Taiwan" – on Feb. 28th, Lantern Festival, the first joint lantern show held by Jiangsu and Taiwan received the biggest number of visitors. 50,000 citizens and tourists went to the Confucius Temple to watch lanterns. The number of people is 10,000 more than last year. Though rain fell, the passion of visitors were not affected at all. 

Earlier than 5 o'clock in the afternoon, pedestrian flows could be seen on each road extending to the Confucius Temple. Many citizens already knew that traffic control would be conducted at night so they chose to take buses or metro, got off at the stations near the Confucius Temple and walked to the lantern show site. At 5:15p.m., safety alerting went from yellow to orange, indicating the people flow became congested 1 hour earlier comparing with previous years. 

Despite that the area was very crowded; visitors were all steeped in the splendid view of lanterns. In the Hall of Great Accomplishment of the Confucius Temple, 56 sets of combination lanterns attracted a lot of people, who could not only appreciate the essence of the show but also participated in activities such as "Jin Bang Ti Ming", "Lantern Riddle Guessing" and "Number One Scholar Patrol". 

The best itinerary for this year's show is by boat. Pleasure-boats with magnificent accessories and colorful lanterns went from inner Qinhuai River, East Water Pass, Bailu Isle to Zhonghua Gate Lantern Show and the shore near show room inside the Hall of Great Accomplishment, which drew the attention of many citizens along the bank of Qinghuai River. Tourists sitting in the boat watched lanterns and people on both sides of the river watched boats.

As the exhibition zone for Taiwan lanterns, Bailuzhou Park was flooded with people. On the Huanhua Bridge, two phoenix lantern sets and 100 atmosphere lanterns of various style were displayed; on the Yinyue Bridge, a 56-meter dragon lantern made by Qinhuai craftsmen was on exhibition. On seeing those lanterns, visitors all stopped to take pictures.

At around 7 o'clock, small rain fell but visitors were still in the mood. Tens of thousands of umbrellas they held form into a big "flower" which set off the resplendent lanterns.

The lantern show is a success. According to the management department, total number of visitors entering the Confucius Temple and Bailuzhou Park amounted to 500,000.

Due to careful organization of security and safety work, right decision making form the site management department, efforts from policemen on duty and execution of safety plans, public security of the Confucius Temple area remained good and the show went on orderly without any big security incident or tourist casualty. (Nanjing Daily)