Lake Biwa Canal
Soon after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Kyoto started an unprecedented project to make a manmade canal and tunnel connecting Lake Biwa, Japan's biggest lake, with Kyoto to secure enough water supply and power to generate electricity for Kyoto residents, and to symbolically start the first operation of an electric powered streetcar in Japan. Learning about this laboriously made canal is to deeply know the modernization of life in Kyoto, and about the enthusiasm of this city's people.