We have had breakfast in the beautiful hotel restaurant and are packing our bags to depart Nanchang this afternoon. Evelyn should be here in a while with the girls' passports. Hopefully that goes smoothly.
It has been difficult to get a real sense for this city. It is a mixture of ancient buildings and areas and at the same time the level of development is crazy.
This photo encapsulates some of that. In the foreground there is a manicured parking lot for our hotel, the Crowne Plaza. Across the street, to the right, is a building that is in pretty rough shape. I think the field across the way had been homes until recently, but most of them have been razed to build new structures. Off in the distance is the skyline of the "new city" which did not exist at all 11 years ago. On one side of our hotel you can see this scene. On the other there are two high end restaurants that have Bentleys, Audis, BMWs, etc parked in front.
Evelyn tells us that in general the standard of living has improved dramatically during the past 20 years. Hopefully it evens out a little and the impoverished areas can begin to prosper.
Finally, what is amazing to me is that almost nobody I have spoken with about our trip here has ever heard of Nanchang, which has more than 4 million inhabitants. It just blends into the many huge cities here.
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