Record crowds herald holiday

If hitting the road brings a sparkle to the holidays, this ought to be one of the shiniest Golden Weeks on record.

China's civil airlines had a record-high volume of 965,000 passenger trips on National Day, a year-on-year increase of 6.4 percent, while the railroad logged 14 million trips, up 11.6 percent, according to the National Tourism Administration.

On the first day of the weeklong National Day holiday - one of China's two Golden Week vacation periods - Beijing welcomed some 1.08 million tourists at 180 popular sites in the capital, up 9.5 percent year-on-year.