1.3 Billion Urban Exodus for the Chinese New Year!

Celebrating the Year of the Horse! Here are some pictures I collected from different articles showing the masses of people traveling this year to get home to celebrate the holiday with family.

People standing in line for days to get a train ticket home 

 

A train ticket! What everyone is trying to get their hands on! 

The red bag on this woman's back is the most common type of bag most people travel with across China

Waiting to get on the train

People pushing through the carousal to get on the trail

See how some people don't have a seat but are standing. This is called getting a 'standing' ticket. I had to do this in 2007 when I was traveling from Anhui back to Bejing about a 15 hour train ride. All the tickets were sold out for days and its all that was left. My friend and I stood overnight for the first 8 hours and then finally got a seat after some people got off early at one of the stops. An experience I'll never forget!

 

 

方便面 "Convenient noodles" The food of choice when taking a train in China! Its about a $1-2 and all you have to do is add hot water! I love eating these on the train! 

This year baidu.com (China's verison of google) mapped out a heat map showing where people were traveling to across the country. 

Pictures and map from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25911958

http://www.chinahush.com/2014/01/09/exactly-how-difficult-it-is-to-go-home-for-the-spring-festival/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-travel-nightmare-161819112.html

China's Version of Baby Headbands and Ribbons

Having not lived in the US the past six years I can sometimes fall behind with popular trends. One thing I've continued to see pop up in baby pictures are little girls wearing these cute little headbands with bows and flowers. I'm not sure when this trend started in the US but I must say they are cute! 

For example:

Since coming to China years ago I've seen a similar trend but the only difference is the headband has a wig attached to it. I see moms in the park carrying their daughters around wearing these little wigs constantly trying to keep them from falling off. Similar to the US, lots of baby pictures are taking wearing the hand bands!

When you purchase them on Tabao.com (Chinese version of ebay) you have a choice of what color of hair you want (blonde, black, red, or dark brown), the style (straight or curly) and if you want bangs added.