Spring Festival is around the corner and the nation is on the move, going home to see family. 
Foreigners know better than to try to travel during the 2 week break so we are pretty much all stuck in Nanjing for the duration. The train tickets tickets are only available a number of days before the date of travel and so large queues have been forming at every “Booking office for train tickets” on all the main streets.
The largest queue in Nanjing however, can be found daily at the railway station where people are queuing in the freezing cold for up to 7 hours sometimes starting at 4am.
The Chinese have numerous national holidays and usually only 5 days in the year to be taken when they choose. This means that everyone has to travel at the same time making it a complete nightmare. During the Spring Festival more than 230 million people are expected to travel home by train. The mass migration of 35 million from the countryside to the cities has exacerbated this problem with everyone wanting to go home.
Nice to see you still bloging about Nanjing. On my side I haven't written much in the last months (it is because I prefer to talk;-) Anyway, again, thanks to write this blog and know that at least one Parisian reads you,
All the best for the new year
Pascal