China Spring 2016 Part 12

On Day 10, we landed in Chongqing, the biggest city in China with a population of 34 million people. We disembarked and then it took us at least two hours to travel by bus to the airport. Luckily we had a local guide aboard the bus to tell us about this "biggest city you never heard of". We flew to Shanghai and took another long bus ride to the old town of Suzhou. The city is divided by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal from north to south. 42% area of the city is covered by water, including a vast number of ponds and streams, and it is praised as the 'Venice of the Orient'. Built in 514 BC, this is an ancient city with over 2,500 years of history. The unique characteristics of the past are still retained today. The double-chessboard layout of the city, with 'the streets and rivers going side by side while the water and land routes running in parallel', is preserved intact.

The darker blue line shows the portion of the Yangtze that we cruised.
The straight aqua line shows our flight path to Shanghai.

Chongqing

We drove through a tunnel through the hillside beside the Yangtze and entered the other side
of the huge metropolis of  Chongqing. It is very hot and humid there and always cloudy
because the rivers and hills trap the moist air and hold it from dispersing. 

Old Suzhou to the west and newer Shanghai to the east

We walked along canals like this to get to our restaurant for
dinner that night. It was very picturesque. 

Another typical hotel room. 

Our nighttime view from the hotel. We went down and walked the
streets below just to stretch our legs after a long day of travel.