Monday, Feb 22 was Yuanxiao Jie (Lantern Festival), the last day of Spring Festival, the first full moon of the new year (couldn't see it), and a reason to celebrate. Despite some light rain, Yu Garden was packed, but not uncomfortably so. In this slideshow, we explain some of the sights within.

Photos by Brandon. Words by SmartShanghai's Yu Garden correspondents.

Rabbits are crucial animals in Chinese folklore, and rabbit lanterns are a thing in Shanghai (not so everywhere in China). No one had a bigger rabbit lantern than this kid. His grandpa made it for him, and everyone was chasing him down for pictures. Rabbits are lucky and relate to the moon aspect of this holiday. These rabbit lanterns are Yutu, the Jade Rabbit, who lives on the moon and makes Chinese medicine (elixir of life) for the moon goddess Chang'e, who also appears in The Monkey King. China has a moon rover named Yutu that landed in 2013.

The riddle lanterns. Basically, if your Chinese isn't really on point (maybe not even then), you won't solve these. They're on that tough crossword-puzzle level.

For example, this one relates to an ancient poem and a type of Chinese medicine. (Spoiler: it's Danggui, the female ginseng)

This being the Year Of The Monkey, Monkey King is all up in Yu Garden. Here's Sun Wukong lording out with his fam at his palace. Born from stone, he's one of the main characters in Xi You Ji (Journey To The West), which was written in the Ming Dynasty but the folklore dates back much further. He's a really lihai hero that's always causing problems, crashing parties, stealing peaches... Along their journey, the monk has to call in the Buddha to control him. Coincidentally, there's another Monkey King film in theaters right now, one of over at least 90-100 TV and film adaptations.

Zhu Bajie (basically, "the pig with eight things he shouldn't do"), another major character in Xi You Ji. No self control, this guy. He loves the ladies and the watermelon, and he used to command a celestial army in heaven before getting kicked out, possibly for liaisons with / sexual harassment of that moon goddess Chang'e, possibly for other reasons, depending on who's telling the story. So he got banished to earth, but due to an error in the reincarnation process he came back half pig. His relationship with Monkey King is complicated.

If this monkey walked up to you on Yongfu Lu, would you let him climb on your shoulder for the Instagram?

So, these antennae. They're called lingzi, and they're most commonly used in Peking Opera as a decoration for brave, handsome, and young characters to make their movement more dynamic. Monkey King rocks them. They're real hot right now.

So many impressive installations in here. This is Yue Fei's mother giving him the famous "serve the country with the utmost loyalty" tattoo. (Chengyu = jing zhong bao guo).

Here we have Mu Guiying from the Northern Song Dynasty, a.k.a. the most well-known character in Generals of the Yang Family. She's famous for leading her squad to break the Heavenly Gate Formation.

And for something more modern, The Chinese Dream.

The Chinese calendar has 12 animals. Which animal are you?

Everyone was calmly squeezing to get onto the Jiuqu Qiao (九曲桥) bridge. This bridge is one of the most iconic spots in Yu Garden, and walking across it during the Lantern Festival is an old Shanghainese tradition. Our colleague Rhiannon says that's because, like life, the bridge has a lot of twists and turns (nine, to be exact), so after people walk the bridge during Lantern Festival, they can expect a relatively stable year. Surrounding the bridge are brightly-lit historical scenes like a hologram textbook. Some threw money into the water for good fortune, and probably at least one person dropped their phone.

The police and military presence was strong last night, and they had the heavy crowds totally under control. Soldiers linked arms to prevent crowds from bursting through, and guns were visible.

Speaking of the law, this is Baoqingtian (包青天), the most famous judge in Chinese history. He handled a lot of cases for the lower classes and used his tiger guillotines to chop the heads off of bad people.

Here we have another famous historical figure, Guan Yu. This scene comes from the classic fictional battle “Five Passes” in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which Guan Yu's enemy Bian Xi tries to trick him into having a drink then gets split in half with one blow.

Honestly, we didn't see many people eating the typical Lantern Festival food tangyuan last night. Or find many people selling them. More people were snacking on deep-fried foods, tonghulu or Yu Garden's famous Nanxiang steamed buns than anything else. This shop was super busy though, and their meat tangyuan were really good. Again, eating tangyuan is a southern proclivity, and the north rocks the yuanxiao during the Lantern Festival.

Somewhere on the moon, there's a rabbit making Chinese medicine. And somewhere in China, there's a dude in a toy factory making rabbits.

Well, that's it for 2016. Happy Lantern Festival and Happy New Year, y'all. If you'd like to go see all this for yourself, it's on until Feb 25 all day. Price is 80rmb to get in. And in case you're wondering why there's no pictures of beautiful, candlelit lanterns floating through the sky, well, that's not such a good look in dense, urban areas. Like fireworks, they're not allowed downtown.