temppeternh |
Jul 13th, 2017 08:46 AM |
You have the dates wrong. The holiday this year is Oct 1 to 7, with 8 added on because the Mid-Autumn Festival one-day holiday, a movable, lunar holiday, is on Oct 4. (Usually there are five consecutive working days off plus one weekend, with the other weekend worked in order to add two working days to the three-day holiday. This year Sat 30 Sep will be worked but Sun 8 Oct not, because it will be taken as a substitute for the simultaneous one-day holiday on Oct 4. Chinese holidays are rarely straightforward.)
Sites are busy all week, but a significant proportion of the Beijing population exits, and much of the rest isn't going to work, so getting around town is significantly easier, and traffic flows a great deal better. Mid-week there's a sort of lull, as everyone's already left or arrived. Pollution is typically lighter, and unlike at Spring Festival restaurants and other services powered by migrant labour tend to stay open. It's not all bad news.
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