going to china october 11th - but.....

hi i heard from my friends saying that chinese get 1 week holiday
starting october 7th or october 10th.
and tourist areas (and everywhere) will be swarmed by large local
tourists. is that true? I thought the week-long holiday starts 1st
october.

On Mon, 2 Jun 2008 02:11:23 -0700 (PDT), the renowned nick chan
wrote:

hi i heard from my friends saying that chinese get 1 week holiday
starting october 7th or october 10th.
and tourist areas (and everywhere) will be swarmed by large local
tourists. is that true? I thought the week-long holiday starts 1st
october.

October 1-7 these days, AFAIK, for the mainland. October 10
(double-ten day) is the holiday on Taiwan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_%28China%29


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

On Jun 2, 2:11*am, nick chan wrote:
hi i heard from my friends saying that chinese get 1 week holiday
starting october 7th or october 10th.
and tourist areas (and everywhere) will be swarmed by large local
tourists. *is that true? I thought the week-long holiday starts 1st
october.

Starting on Oct 1 in China. But I think they don't get the full week
anymore, it's more like 3 days.

nick chan wrote:

hi i heard from my friends saying that chinese get 1 week holiday
starting october 7th or october 10th.

The way this works is as follows: The Chinese get three days' holiday
for October 1st, the national day. For the last few years they have
worked the weekend before the week with the holiday, and then been given
the other two week days in lieu, which with the final weekend gives them
seven days off in a row.

So to be clear, they work Saturday and Sunday (and services usually
available at weekend such as certain bus tours are not available because
these are working days), and then have Monday to Sunday off.

The exact dates are often not announced until shortly before the holiday
but you might guess would be Mon 29 Sept to Sun 5 Oct.

A similar arrangement used to apply to the first week of May, but that
has now been cancelled, the holiday reduced to a single day, and the
other two days distributed elsewhere.

and tourist areas (and everywhere) will be swarmed by large local
tourists. is that true?

Not exactly. The population of larger cities has more people with the
discretionary spending to be able to take a leisure trip and so traffic
tends to ease (official cars are sometimes ordered off the roads, too),
it's easier to get around, and the pollution may lighten. Famous sights
are certainly busy, but not usually impossibly so.

On the other hand mountain-top, scenic, and resort destinations are
packed out, and hotel prices often double. Transport prices may also
rise.

So the best idea is to a big city before the holiday starts (when
transport will be packed), stay there until the middle (when the usual
transport discounts are available and almost no one is moving), then
move to another big city and stay still until it's all over.

Overall that week is best avoided, but it's by no means impossible to
deal with.

Peter N-H
http://www.datasinica.com

In article 5bdb53ae-4d6f-4353-b63c-8b81b54965f0
@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com, nick chan says...
hi i heard from my friends saying that chinese get 1 week holiday
starting october 7th or october 10th.
and tourist areas (and everywhere) will be swarmed by large local
tourists. is that true? I thought the week-long holiday starts 1st
october.

According to my brother in law who used to live in Beijing, in the first
week of October Beijing used to get so full that you couldn't walk on
the streets. So two years ago I spent the first October week in
Xinjiang, which is a more remote place and doesn't get that many
tourists.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

On Jun 3, 12:14*am, (Peter Neville-Hadley)
wrote:
nick chan wrote:
hi i heard from my friends saying that chinese get 1 week holiday
starting october 7th or october 10th.

The way this works is as follows: The Chinese get three days' holiday
for October 1st, the national day. For the last few years they have
worked the weekend before the week with the holiday, and then been given
the other two week days in lieu, which with the final weekend gives them
seven days off in a row.

So to be clear, they work Saturday and Sunday (and services usually
available at weekend such as certain bus tours are not available because
these are working days), and then have Monday to Sunday off.

The exact dates are often not announced until shortly before the holiday
but you might guess would be Mon 29 Sept to Sun 5 Oct.

A similar arrangement used to apply to the first week of May, but that
has now been cancelled, the holiday reduced to a single day, and the
other two days distributed elsewhere.

and tourist areas (and everywhere) will be swarmed by large local
tourists. *is that true?

Not exactly. The population of larger cities has more people with the
discretionary spending to be able to take a leisure trip and so traffic
tends to ease (official cars are sometimes ordered off the roads, too),
it's easier to get around, and the pollution may lighten. Famous sights
are certainly busy, but not usually impossibly so.

On the other hand mountain-top, scenic, and resort destinations are
packed out, and hotel prices often double. Transport prices may also
rise.

So the best idea is to a big city before the holiday starts (when
transport will be packed), stay there until the middle (when the usual
transport discounts are available and almost no one is moving), then
move to another big city and stay still until it's all over.

Overall that week is best avoided, but it's by no means impossible to
deal with.

Peter N-Hhttp://www.datasinica.com


thanks all for the reply
Peter, by " Overall that week is best avoided", did u mean the first
week of october? so I presume me going on 11th october is ok?

In article cfe00c51-d4be-44cd-969c-
, nick chan says...
so I presume me going on 11th october is ok?

11th October is ok.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

nick chan wrote:

so I presume me going on 11th october is ok?

Upmarket hotels in Beijing and Shanghai tend to be very busy that week
due to conferences and exhibitions season beginning, and the tail end of
the people with lots of disposable income and able to please themselves
on holiday to the tune of an extra week. But if you're not looking to be
in a Peninsula, Shangri-La, or Hyatt, not a problem. And weather-wise a
good time to be travelling, too.

Peter N-H
http://www.datasinica.com