A Homebody Girl's Golden Week

October 1st is the Chinese National Holiday. It is one of the most highly anticipated national holidays because lots of people can make plans for travelling during the 7-day allotted vacation time, thus it is also called 黄金周(huáng jīn zhōu; Golden Week).

            guó qìng jiē zěn me guò de ne
Simon：国庆节怎么过的呢？
            How did you spend your National Holiday?

             jǐ hū dōu zhái zài jiā lǐ le
Huihui：几乎都宅在家里了。
             I almost spent all the days at home.

             zěn me bú chū qù guàng guàng ne
Simon：怎么不出去逛逛呢？
             Why didn’t you travel around?

             dào chù dōu shì rén shān rén hǎi ā
Huihui：到处都是人山人海啊。
             There are huge crowds everywher.

After the week, Simon asks Huihui how she spent the holiday, "怎么过" is short for "怎么度过", and it is means “How to pass…?” or "How to spend...?"If we say "How did you spend your weekend?”, we can say, "周末怎么过的?".

Huihui says she stayed at home the whole time, and she used "宅". Generally, it is a noun and refers to a residence or house, for example, "宅子"(house), "宅院"(house with a courtyard). It became popular on the internet in recent years, and has become widely used by young people. It now also refers to a group of people who spend considerable time on indoor pursuits, such as computer gaming and web surfing, sleeping and watching TV.  They seldom go out, but instead stay at home all day long. For example, "宅男"(homebody boy),"宅女"(homebody girl).

"逛"is a verb; it means "take a stroll" or "hang out", for example, "逛街"(go shopping), "闲逛"(stroll). "怎么不..." is usually used to start a suggestion; it is equivalent to "why not...". For example, "怎么不去逛逛商场？"means "Why not hang out in a shopping mall?"

The literal translation of "人山人海" is "people mountain people sea", and the idiom is used to describe "huge crowds of people".