We spent our last day in Nanjing at Mendong(門東), where is near River Qinghuai and Confucius Temple, the meccas at southern part of the city.  It is so named because its also located not far from Zhonghua Gate.(Please see my previous writing.)  Mendong had been a residential area, gradually become an old but dilapidated housing complex which were extensively refurbished in recent years under the collaboration between local government and developers.  (No wonder I wasnt aware of this area when I first visited Nanjing just less than five years ago.).

Some then grand mansions belonged to celebrities like Jiang Shoushan(蔣壽山) in Taiping Era of Qing Dynasty, and Zhou Chu(周處) in Dynasties of The South and The North, amd others including those used to be the lodgings for the participants to imperial examination from other provinces, all have been restored in their original architecture styles along with some others still under construction in a district as large as 70,000 square meters.  I guess there are no private-owned houses now, and all of them are national properties that are granted to public use like library or mini museum, or leased out for commercial use like souvenir shops, restaurants, and hotel(s).  (We stayed at a "hotel" in Mendong; well, the price was so dear.)  Maybe the development of Mendong has been a successful model of joint venture. 

Needless to say, drone of tourists that were swarming all over Mendong, as well as the adjacent River Qinhuai and Confucius Temple on that Saturday night, which made us no way to hide but in that modern hotel of classical simplicity.