In China, the Lunar New Year is more important than the Gregorian one: The Year of the Dragon will begin on January, 23rd, and there will be a week-long national holiday (Spring Festival) then, but that this year New Year's Eve, even though a Saturday, has been declared a working day is a bit much. Elimination of week-ends to compensate for bridge days is in itself quite common here, though, and it is important to clump holidays together so that people have a chance to return home, which can be far in China.

We are not going home for New Year, we are going to Suzhou tomorrow for three days, about a hundred kilometres (a 25 minutes train ride) to the west of Shanghai.