The bus was ordered to pick us up at seven thirty AM outside of the Hotel and arrived in time. The road was much better than I remember from last time we went this way. Everywhere new houses were being built. Along long stretches there seemed to have been planted trees along the roadsides. It felt like you were driving through a never ending alley. The villages we drove through were barely recognizable from last time.
Well in Nanchang the driver asked for 400 Yuan extra to take us to the Nanchang Museum. Since we were quite tired and honestly a bit fed up on porcelain which would raise much more question then answers, we abstained and lazed around through the afternoon and evening in the new terminal building at Nanchang airport. It appeared as if time expected to be needed to bring us here had been estimated on the high side. Maybe we can reduce the margins slightly another time.
An important politicians surrounded by family, friends and a following courtship of perhaps thirty people was quickly waved through airport formalities and into the VIP room. An orthodox communist with party membership card and horn-rimmed glasses noticed this injustice and angrily went to full frontal attack with the airport staff, waving Mao's little red book in his right hand, arguing with security guards and seated spectators who treated him politely but disinterested.
No doubt China is changing, or perhaps becoming again what it has always been.