October 2, 2012

Home for the holidays? Not so fast



This week all of China celebrates National Day with a seven day holiday. People are encouraged to travel, see the sites, and visit their families.

We stay home. And with good reason and more reasons.

This year in an attempt to "alleviate holiday road congestion" all freeways are actually free. Gone are the nominal tolls on Chinese highways to cars with seven seats or less. Get going. Go see your family. Hurry up what are you waiting for, the roads are free!

Not so fast my friend.

It seems everyone in China had the same idea. Instant congestion. Instant gridlock. Freeways became parking lots.

The complete story about this crazy holiday travel is found in the China Daily. It was so bad that "portable toilets were set up at several sections of the highways leading out of Shanghai in order to provide relief for long-suffering drivers and their passengers."1

Funny, it's never stopped them before.
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1 "Gridlock as tolls are waived for holiday," China Daily. Published October 1, 2012.

2 comments:

Melanie Ooi said...

Ha ha! You're right! Every once in a while, I see someone standing in such a way that I ask myself, or the (unfortunate) person with me, "Are they doing what I think they're doing?"

And the inevitable answer is "I really don't want to know..."

Unknown said...

And that is why we always, always, always take off our shoes before entering our apartment.

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Remember the CG's in all comments. Thanks for checking in on the work in China!