Beijing's Spring Festival shopping extravaganza

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02:41

If you're in Beijing and you still need to buy your Spring Festival treats or decorations before you head home for the New Year, you'd better head over to the National Agricultural Exhibition Center straight away. There, you will be among thousands of other people making their way through hundreds of vendors from across the country and even the world!

For those of you who don't know, Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday for the Chinese – think Christmas for the West – people buy each other gifts.

And the exhibition center is the perfect place for any kind of gift – from rare edible treats to beautiful decorations.

We saw fish from Qingdao and sausage from Guangdong Province, plus preserved beef from Inner Mongolia. Yet the spirit of the Belt and Road Initiative was in the air with international vendors like one selling tasty Portuguese wine.

But there is more than just special food and drink – specialty clothing like Chinese tunics and wool coats are available too.

And then, of course, there is a plethora of Chinese New Year decorations and children's toys. From red lanterns to cotton stuffed pigs, to honor the Year of the Pig. My favorite: the gorgeous paper-cutting decorations, with dozens of designs to choose from.

The exhibition ends on February 1.