As we are about to start contemplating ideas for next year's Project Week activities (for discussion at our upcoming Parents' Weekend'), this seems a good time to look back on some of the things our pioneering intake got up to during the very first CIS Hangzhou Project Week - from the 24th to the 30th March this year.
Since China's celebrated 'Grand Canal' has its origin point in Hangzhou (branching off from the Qiantang River, just to the south of the Yangtze Delta) and is a central element of the city's identity, we thought it would be appropriate to consider the history and the continuing importance of this mighty thoroughfare. A group of six students and four adults flew to its terminus in the northern capital of Beijing and then returned to Hangzhou tracing the route of the canal - with stops along the way in the canalside cities of Dezhou (the 'capital' of China's solar power industry), Xuzhou (home to a bigger lake than Hangzhou's, and a collection of terracotta warriors smaller than Xi'an's but equally impressive), Wuxi, and Suzhou. We made a point of trying to use as many different modes of transport as possible:高铁, local train, bus, taxi, long-distance coach (on all of which M. Biret and I managed to sleep!) - and even a waterbus (for the very last leg of the journey in Hangzhou, from Wulin Square Wharf back to our local Walmart on nearby Gudun Lu).
Since China's celebrated 'Grand Canal' has its origin point in Hangzhou (branching off from the Qiantang River, just to the south of the Yangtze Delta) and is a central element of the city's identity, we thought it would be appropriate to consider the history and the continuing importance of this mighty thoroughfare. A group of six students and four adults flew to its terminus in the northern capital of Beijing and then returned to Hangzhou tracing the route of the canal - with stops along the way in the canalside cities of Dezhou (the 'capital' of China's solar power industry), Xuzhou (home to a bigger lake than Hangzhou's, and a collection of terracotta warriors smaller than Xi'an's but equally impressive), Wuxi, and Suzhou. We made a point of trying to use as many different modes of transport as possible:高铁, local train, bus, taxi, long-distance coach (on all of which M. Biret and I managed to sleep!) - and even a waterbus (for the very last leg of the journey in Hangzhou, from Wulin Square Wharf back to our local Walmart on nearby Gudun Lu).
Filmed and edited by Jasmine Topp and Sierra Chiao
