The Grand Canal

Sorry no new pictures today, my camera decided to run out of batteries just as soon as I was far enough away from the school to make going back and recharging it difficult. I walked around for a while today eventually coming to what I believe is another canal, but this was was much bigger then any of the one's I had seen up to this point. While most of the canals I had seen look sort of like the C&O Canal in DC this one was much bigger the size of a big river. It also had a series of small ships transporting what looked like industrial goods down its murky brown water. I'm not sure if this is part of the Grand Canal or not but maps of the Grand Canal indicate it runs past Changzhou somewhere.

The Grand Canal is a canal that was started in the 5th century BC which spans from Hangzhou, not far south of here to Beijing 1700 km to the north. That's a pretty much half the country which is pretty amazing considering it was operating at that length in by 500 AD or so. For comparison the C&O canal in DC runs from Cumberland MD to DC about 300km was built in the 1800's and took so long and cost so much that it was never finished. The name C&O is for Chesapeake and Ohio, which is a pretty bold claim for a canal that gets no where near Ohio. The Grand Canal is still operating in some places, especially near Hangzhou. It used to be that you could still take an over night boat from Suzhou near here to Hangzhou, the NYT even did an article about it in '88, but I believe there's no longer a boat.

Suzhou and Hangzhou were supposed to be historically the most beautiful cities in China, both were said to have been visited by Marco Polo. In fact there was a proverb, which was probably and early form of a tourist ad, that said "In heaven there is paradise on earth there is Suzhou and Hangzhou." Suzhou was historically famous for having the most beautiful women in China and some beautiful building built during the visit of one Emperor, who supposedly came for the women. Suzhou also has some gardens that are on the World Heritage List.