They’re scrubbing the city clean ready for the Youth Olympic Games in August (‘Share the Games, Share our Dreams‘ being the most sickening and sentimental strap line ever!).
There are new shop fronts all over the city, new trees to replace the ancient ones they tore down against the will of the local people, (TaiPing Nan Lu). There’s a new metro line (line 3) and new pavements (for e.bikes to use as a race track and to park bikes on – pedestrians should walk on the road).
I walked past the old Olympic Stadium today (Wu Tia Stadium) to see they have also given this a face-lift.
From looking at the size of it, the stadium was clearly built when Nanjing was little more than a village and is dwarfed by the red monstrosity in the south of the city where most of the action will happen in August.
The revamp is well overdue and if the city government does this amount of polishing and scrubbing around the city and cracks the whip to get the workmen to finish all the major building projects, let’s hope for one each summer.