A glimpse of the future. No wait, the past. No, maybe the future. No, maybe...

Lately, the area around our local high speed train station has been looking more and more, hmmm... dystopian?  Post-apocalyptic?  Or perhaps, just plain surreal.  Above, huge concrete tracks, where futuristic trains quietly zoom along at around 175 kph on their way in to the metropolis of Chengdu.  Below and directly outside the station, a flagstone plaza and driveway, covered with construction dust and looking more ancient by the day.  Just past a fifteen foot section of wall, left over from the small factory that was there two years ago, a vast field of rubble where the construction area for the whole train line used to be.  The rubble field is arranged into randomly placed mounds, is the size of several football fields, and is now covered in vines and weeds.  Close to the station, some enterprising people (the station employees, perhaps?) have put in some terraced garden plots of bok choy and other vegetables.  More towards the horizon, several towering new five-star housing developments under construction.



Some taxi drivers playing cards around an improvised fire of pieces of scrap lumber, adding to the overall Mad Max kind of effect.