People in Beijing ignored the chilly winter weather to go out of home and flocked to shopping malls, restaurants and beauty parlors to celebrate the New Year on Monday, Beijing Evening News reported.

Most shopping centers across the city provided discount prices to cater to consumers' shopping spree during the public holiday. Electrical monitors at SOGO indicated that from 7:00 pm onwards the department store received some 560 visitors within the first 10 minutes, 25 percent higher than that of Christmas Eve a week before.

At the Shuang'an Shopping Center there was still a long queue of customers waiting to pay right up until closing time at 10:00 pm. Statistics showed that retail turnover on Monday and Sunday was 30 percent than the same two days last year. Garments, cosmetics, jewelry and home appliances were selling like hot cakes.

Beijingers also tended to loosen their purse strings at restaurants too. A waitress surnamed Zhang from a Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant outlet said that all seats were booked out on Sunday. The restaurant treated over 1,500 diners on Monday, 20 percent higher than during the weekend. Such a crowded scenario was also seen at De Zhuang Hot Pot which witnessed an increase in customer by 30 percent over regular days.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of female white-collar workers chose to spend their time at a beauty parlor. The newspaper said that at some beauty parlors near the Central Business District, consumers started to wait from 3:00 pm on Monday, a phenomenon rarely seen in the industry. And there was more than three percent of people applying for membership cards during the New Year celebration season.

(CRI January 2, 2008)