We got to Jinan at 6.13am. I was woken up about a half hour before by the conductor shining her mobile phone light into my face, so she could trade the tickets. To be fair, I hadn't been in the deepest sleep of my life, but that is not the nicest way to be woken up. I've seen worse: on our flight from Yinchuan to Nanjing at Christmas, the guy next to Liam had fallen asleep on his tray table and as we were going in for final descent the air hostess yelled at him and then just yanked his head up. Charming woman.
I fair fell out of the bunk; there was no way I'd be getting back up there. Through teamwork we got all our stuff down without any casualties. We got off and got a taxi to the bus station (the only way in and out of Qufu is by bus). Jinan seemed like quite the dump. Fortunately we weren't staying too long. We bought a flexible time ticket to Qufu and checked with information, to find that a bus left at 7am, so not long to go. I went off to get the KFC hot chocolate that I was newly addicted to and then we were on a bus to Qufu. The journey was quite dull but not uncomfortable (makes a change) as it wasn't too long (also makes a change). We got to Qufu at about 9 and got a taxi to our hostel. The woman driver let us out and pointed down a road because she just couldn't be bothered to take us the whole way once we'd let her know we didn't want her to take us round all the attractions (which are in easy walking distance of each other anyway). We went down a side street where it appeared she'd pointed, but it clearly wasn't there. I was desperate for the toilet so I found one; the worst public toilet I had ever been in (up to that point anyway).
We found the hostel down the street the taxi had stopped on, and after checking in and doing some much-needed laundry without hot water or washing powder (clothes-washing soap and Mattel washing-machine it was), we went out to see Qufu. We had a lot to see that day! Qufu is the birthplace of China's most famous sage, Confucius. Apparently he was born in a cave near the town, but later moved into the actual town. Then when he was done with travelling through the fiefdoms of China, after being disgraced by his original employer, in search of someone who wanted his service, he settled in Qufu. His descendants have lived there ever since.
First we walked down the street to the Confucius Temple. The street was full of souvenirs and tack, and I couldn't help but buy two fans, which I was actually undercharged for, according to the price I was quoted. Perhaps the seller forgot I was a rich laowai for a second of pure insanity and sold them to me for the actual price value. The temple was different to the many we'd seen and still had left to see because it was dedicated to Confucius instead of being Buddhist. Fairly interesting but nothing to write home about. We stopped in a little hut where the 75th generation descendant of Confucius, Kong Fang, was doing calligraphy. I couldn't resist a giant painting of red flowers, which no doubt I'll be Chinafying my university room with. Liam got a giant 'fu' (like the most important calligraphic character in China, you see it everywhere!) plus a free picture as they couldn't be bothered to give him his change. The stuff was slightly overpriced but seeing as we were at a tourist site and he was a Confucian descendant and apparently also very renouned in his own right I let it slide, though I managed to haggle quite a discount too. They kept trying to sell us more stuff so we made our getaway.
Throughout all the Confucian sites, and in fact throughout all of Qufu people were constantly hawking their wares and it got very tiresome. You couldn't walk 10 metres without hearing a 'hello' followed quickly by a sales pitch. It was especially annoying in the temple where virtually every room had been commandeered by rip-off merchants - as Liam said, "is nothing sacred?!"
We saw the intricate columns which I'd wanted to see - apparently when the emperors came to visit, they covered them up with red cloth because they are so magnificent that it was said the emperor might be jealous or offended that even his Imperial Palace columns could not match them for beauty. We also saw the Apricot Altar where Confucius gave his speeches. It is one of the most important sites in China for the Chinese people... we actually managed to pass it by the first time because we didn't know what it was. When we went specifically in search of it, we found it surrounded by Chinese tourists having their photographs taken. We also saw the carved Confucian family tree - his descendancy is very important!
After the temple we needed food so we walked quite a bit looking for a good restaurant - any restaurant! We ordered sweet and sour pork with pineapple (I couldn't resist such a familiar dish) and Confucian Family style chicken, which turned out to be a whole roasted chicken (head, innards, feet included) in gravy. Absolutely delicious. We ripped it down to its skeleton like the vicious carnivores we are. Confucius himself was a very fussy eater, in that he wanted certain healthy foods and wanted them made a certain way. His family and servants adopted the same diet and got used to making food in those ways, and it spread to Qufu. We thought we should try out some Confucian foods if we could because you're unlikely to find them elsewhere, or if you do, they won't be as well-made or as scrupulously correct by Confucius' traditional methods.
After eating we walked to the Confucian Mansion. On the way we tried to get into what we thought was the Confucius Museum, which we'd inadvertently bought tickets to. There was no clear way in and it didn't look like a museum - eventually we were turned back. So we left it and went to the mansions. The Confucian Mansion is split into an administrative section and a residential section. We don't know if people still lived there as it was of course filled with hawkers and naturally loads of tourists. However it would have been an amazing place to live in its time - intricate buildings and beautiful grounds, and like a maze with so many alleyways snaking through the grounds.
We were done in the mansion pretty quickly and walked under the Queli Arch, which was where visiting emperors used to take their after dinner strolls. We hopped into our first ever rickshaw to get to the Confucian Cemetery. The rickshaw was freezing because of the wind and as the streets were so bumpy I kept knocking my ribs into a steel bar. Not my favourite mode of transport, but a nice way to slowly see the scenery, the historic buildings, and the tree-lined streets of Qufu.
The Confucius Cemetery is actually known as the Confucian Forest in Chinese. It is both in reality. Apparently during a certain time period in Confucius' life, every single one of his disciples planted a tree from their home province/region, and it is also a cemetery for those same disciples. There are loads of tomb mounds dotted through the trees. We only really cared to see the tomb of Confucius himself, which was a bigger mound with prayer cushions in front of it. Also next to it was his son's tomb (his son was quite influential too if I remember rightly) and his grandson.
Done with all the sights we realised we had to do something with our paintings as there wasn't a chance they'd survive the Chinese trains, so we went to the post office and sent them by surface mail to Britain. As Liam's was so long they made up their own packaging out of two smaller boxes - very resourceful and much better than the idiots at the Urumqi post office! Finished there we went on the internet back at the hostel and then went out to look for postcards and notebooks. We found notebooks (about time, too! I'd been looking for some since, like, Harbin), but it seems that strangely Qufu hasn't got any postcards. We gave up the search and went for dinner. We ordered two dishes recommended by the guidebook at a 'Confucius Style' restaurant (practically every restaurant in Qufu claims to be so) - Yangguan Shandie and Shili Yinxin. We didn't know what either of them were, but soon found out that the former is a folded omelette wrap with some kind of brown paste in it, and the latter is bright yellow gingko baloba beans in a sweet goo. The omelette was nice for a few mouthfuls but I found the paste is a small quantities kind of food. The beans themselves were vile, and some of them tasted like aniseed. However I really liked the goo so I ate it with a spoon while Liam finished the wraps off.
Back at the hostel our room was quite snuggly and warm until the heater started making weird noises and switched itself off. We had left it on for ages to dry our clothes for the next morning as we'd have to pack up again, so maybe it overheated. Anyway the room lost heat really quickly and we spent the night freezing and curled up into the foetal position for warmth.
The leafy streets of Qufu
Me at the Apricot Altar where Confucius used to give speeches.
Dacheng Palace and the ornate pillars at the Confucius Temple.
Confucian Family style chicken - nummy nummy nummy!
Kui Tower in the Confucius Mansion - where the family could go if ever in danger.
Queli Arch - it doesn't look like much, but it was surreal to walk along it knowing that past emperors of China had also done so.
Views out onto the streets from the rickshaw.
Confucius' tomb.
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