Not a train, but a bus ride took us further south along the route of the old canal...
...(on to which roadside vendors boarded to sell hot snacks)...
...to Dezhou, just in Shandong Province. It is another "city" comprising a large urban/rural area, with over 5 million residents.The center city is crowded with transport options: open and enclosed three-wheelers and city buses, and surely regular taxis are out there too.
These smaller options do not have meters; it's all decided by haggling, which some prefer to do for the sport. It seems most are battery powered....
...so their slow pace allows snapshots of other forms of family transport, also most likely battery powered.
On the edge of downtown, where the refurbished old Canal runs, a stone sign proclaims "Old Canal Scenic Area"...
...and a few old fishermen whiled away the day. When asked, "What are you catching?", the reply was "Nothing!"
A center city park attracted more people...
...including this amazing calligrapher, practicing with water his Big Character Writing skill.
Although Dezhou has not completely turned its back on the Canal, it is pursuing a decidedly more contemporary theme: solar energy. Here one of many carvings depicting solar themes tells of Heilos, driving his chariot of the sun across the sky and among a tangle of wires.
A schematic map of the new "solar area" outside of the old city shows convention centers, hotels, housing, factories, schools, amusement areas...the whole cosmos.
The gigantic photovoltaic array arcing above the hotel and its conference center is quite impressive. When asked about how its solar water heaters for the indoor swimming pool were doing, the reply was "They are broken."
Another major array soars over the main convention center... hopefully it is producing electricity. In any event its an impressive sight, and at least provides some shading to the building.
More examples of solar electric installations were found in the city: those waving things leaping among the apartment buildings support solar panels, as do the red supports for the street lights.
Parks around the city have a diverse collection of p.v. powered lights....
...and not a few items whose purposes were not at all obvious...testing mico-solar chips?
