The Expo Garden has become a popular venue for wedding photos.  

The Shaanxi Pavilion is holding a series of events for the Qixi festival.

Although the three big dates on the Chinese calendar are Chinese New Year (chunjie), Tomb Sweeping Day (qingmingjie) and the Mid-Autumn Festival (zhongqiujie), Chinese get loved-up during their version of Valentine's Day on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, as do Korea and Japan.

Called Qixi in Chinese, or Chilseok in Korea, it sees many young lovers march to the nearest matchmakers, or have their fortunes read to check their marriage prospects.

It also sees restaurants booked up and flower prices double - as is the case with Western Valentine's Day in February, which has taken a commercial foothold on the mainland in tandem with the economic reforms of the past several decades.

This year is particularly special in the eyes of superstitious Chinese as the Qixi festival falls on Monday, at the end of three days of comet showers and unusual planetary sightings in the skies above the city.

Altar and Vega are seen as the celestial incarnations of a young cow herder and the goddess he married. Vega's mother, who was distraught at the prospect of her daughter marrying a mortal, subsequently dragged her back to the heavens and created the Milky Way as a means of keeping them apart.