Crowds Descend on Beijing During the October Holiday

Most of the city is back into the seven-day work week – the price we pay for the October Holiday. Whether you chose to get away or relax in the city, Beijing was far from dull as tourists flocked to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City.

As with each year's national holiday, October’s Golden Week brought the nation's capital a massive wave of domestic tourists as people attempted to make the most of their mandatory vacations. If you had travel plans but didn’t try to skip town early (rookie mistake), chances were that you got caught amid record numbers on the trains and at the airports. On October 1 alone, 8.928 million passengers rode China’s rails (up 7.7 percent from last year). Meanwhile, Beijing’s airport handled 258,000 passengers on October 1; the expected total for the September 30 to October 7 period should top two million.

Tourists who attempted to forgo the travel rush and stick to sightseeing in Beijing were faced with crushing crowds both downtown and north of Beijing at the more popular Great Wall locations. More than 12 million tourists clogged Beijing's museums and parks (up 28 percent from 2010), making up the majority of 24.3 million tourists that visited 119 National Tourism Administration cultural spots nationwide (up 8.84 percent from the previous year).

Photos: chinaSMACK.com