- Point and click on the canal sections just below to switch to that section
Tonghui passes rather unspectacularly under the "spaghetti bowl" intersection between the 4th Ring Road and Tongxian Expressway (green color on map).
It has a wide and calm flow at this section and is very popular with the residents living around it.
Strolling people are abundant, sports fishermen catch food for their cats, boys are netting minnows and bikers enjoy the tranquility.
At the western entrance to Tonghui's only natural lake the canal flows under the main north-south railway artery (large picture).
These are the remains of the original stone construction of the second sluice gate built in 1293 at today's Gao Bei Jian!
It still has one of the two arms, which held pulleys used to raise and lower a wooden gate sliding in the groove of the stone pier.
Dovetails set into opposing slots (small picture) held the stone blocks of the pier together. They were originally made of wood but in Guo Shou Jing's time iron was more common.
In the "good old days" the lake was a popular picnic place for wealthy people. This obviously waned when the water system began being used for carrying city sewage.
Water management operates a modern sluice gate at the eastern end of the lake. On the day of the photo two of the four sluice gates were open.
As is so often the case, an entrepreneurial person threw together some brick and created a home on the sluice grounds -right of the gate on the photo.
In the background of the photo new residential buildings are shooting up like mushrooms.
Tonghui passes under Beijing's 5th Ring Road virtully unnoticed by the many passing vehicles.
At this section one can still find low budget housing on both banks of the canal. That, however, will probably not last long...
A long, quiet and calm flow towards the new, suburban mushrooming community of Shuang Qiao in the background of the photo.
Like the subway did last century in New York, the new elevated Batong railway running along Tongxian Expressway allows young families to afford their own apartment and still commute to their city job.