The first week of October this year was Golden Week in China - National Day Vacation. For many people in China, vacations are little more than an illusion, with workforces simply rearranging work days so you are made to work several weekends in a row and work harder and longer hours before the holiday begins, and do makeup days afterward.

But hey, at least you get the time off consecutively! But the problem is, so does everybody else. All 1.4 billion of 'em.

_{50-lane, 10-day traffic jam heading back to Beijing Source}

So what happens as a result? You might wonder. Well for my friends and I, we typically hunker down here in Shanghai and just wait for the week to pass by. This was my goal for 2018 too, since I literally just had an entire year+ off, a giant extended vacation that made me feel like I had a major vacation hangover and never wanted to vacation again, but for real this time, I mean it.

Barely a month later we get one of the biggest vacations of the year, so I certainly felt like it was the last thing I really needed. Not only that but a first full paycheck had yet to come through, due for the day after the vacation. Great timing! However, all my friends were off to the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, other parts of China and so on, leaving me in the dust. So I had to make changes.

I had enough money to go away for a few days to somewhere, but I deliberately left it late due to monetary limitations, and that's generally a big no-no at this time of year. Plane tickets double in price, train tickets disappear weeks in advance, hotels fill up like a turkey at an American Thanksgiving.

Then you have to wonder, who's filling up all these planes and trains? Why, a billion Chinese people! Ok maybe I'm exaggerating a little:

Only 710 million citizens were on the move during last year's Golden Week.

If you're not good with numbers, that's MORE than every single person from the USA going on vacation simultaneously - twice. Or, the equivalent of the entirety of Europe hitting the beaches. Visually, this makes sense:

_Sourrce

Oh, wait. Wrong pic...

There's a beach there somewhere, I promise. Source

So with tickets doubling in price and hotels following suit, combined with the fact that I've basically been everywhere nearby that I care to see, affordability was keeping me in China this year once again.

But this was good! I have been eager to travel and see more of the diversity of China for years. So far I've only been to a handful of places; Shanghai, Beijing, Anhui, Xiamen and I suppose 'Hong Kong'. And a small Taiwanese Island for about 3 hours. that's it! And these are hardly representative of everything China has to offer for a traveler's eyes.

So I started happily researching places in China, all the cool places that weren't too touristy. And that point is key, because if you go to famous tourist locations you get... well, you certainly get a spectacle if nothing else:

Expectation:

Reality:

Expectation:

Source

Reality:

Expectation:

Source

Reality:

Source

Yeah... Whatever you imagine is 'busy', multiply it by... a lot... to get reality here in China.

But what is left in China that is not touristy? Every place I wanted to go, from the Gobi Desert to the Inner Mongolian plains, a quick search should tens or hundreds of thousands of tourists - per day - with the same idea. If there's one resource not lacking, it's people.

With the addition of money and indeed time being limiting factors, I found a place just 4 hours train (oh dear) away that was so expansive in nature, the crowds shouldn't be too much of a concern. About 4 tickets were left, but upon checking the return journey.. nothing, to anywhere, ever.

So the final step was once again backwards, back to Shanghai, where I would at least see some sights here, where most people have actually left the city, and replaced by millions of other Chinese people from the countryside and elsewhere.

I finally succeeded in my goals to have a half-decent vacation, some of which I'll spill over to the next post.

And, the moral of the story is, sympathy is needed for those forever lost in the crowds of Golden Week.