A visitor takes photos of the moon from the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing on September 13, 2008, one day before the full-moon Mid-Autumn Festival. (Photo: Jinghua.cn) Photo Gallery>>>

Mid-Autumn Festival Soiree at the Lugou Bridge

    BEIJING, Sept. 14 -- A water recycling project has brought back a famous lake-and-moon scene in Beijing, in time for the full-moon Mid-Autumn Festival Sunday night.

    Visitors to the Lugou Bridge, known in the West as the Marco Polo Bridge, will be able to enjoy two full moons -- one in the sky and one in the lake -- for the first time in two decades, Beijing Times reports.

    "The moon over Lugou," one of the eight quintessential scenes of old Beijing, became known after Qing Dynasty emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) was attracted to it and inscribed a poem on a stele that can be found today at one end of the bridge.

    But in recent years, people had not been able to fully enjoy the scene described by Qianlong because the section of the Yongding River that used to run beneath the bridge had dried up.

    The latest effort to boost water level at the river began in May. The government of Fengtai District, where Lugou Bridge is located, refilled the river with waste water.

    Continuing efforts will be made in the future, an official has said.