Shandong

Bullet Train to Qufu

Well firstly train stations in China are more like airports, with ID checks and security scanners, not to mention the numerous gates for each train. After the initialy overwhelming sight i managed to find the correct gate and boarded my train. The trains are much wider than trains in the UK with five seats per row and a wide aisle, making it quite a comfortable journey. And being a bullet train, it travelled pretty fast indeed, 300km/hr to be precise (usually trains travel around 150km/hr), making the journey to Qufu in just over two hours (my fastest train journey to date). The only downside to taking high speed trains is that the station is usually quite far out of the city (for obvious reasons) and so i had to take a bus into the centre, but at 1yuan (10p) a journey you can hardley complain. I arrived at my hostel at around 5pm and found that my room had an ensuite so used the opportunity to do some much needed laundry. Thats as exciting as my first day in Qufu got.

Day 1

The hostel was conveniently located right next to the temple complex. The entrance ticket granted access to the Confucius temple, the Kong Mansion and the Confucius family cemetary. I started with the Kong Mansion, which was home to the first son of confucius and his decendents. It was very similar to the Forbidden city, except on a much smaller scale and the buildings were grey instead of red. I walked around the complex for an hour, trying to avoid the numerous tours and school kids trying to take pictures (seriously it's really annoying) and then headed to the Confucius temple. It is the largest and most renowned temple of Confucius, a chinese teacher and philosopher who lived wround 500BC. The temple itself was a really nice area to walk around, and was relatively quiet by Chinese standards. After the temple I walked to the north of the city to the Confucius family cemetary, where all the decendents of confucius are laid to rest. For this reason it is the largest family cemetary in the world. As it is so large and everything is really spread out it felt more like a small woodland area. Most visitors chose to take the electric cars (thing large golf buggies) on a tour of the area, however i chose this opportunity to escape the crowds and walk the route instead. In the whole two hours i spent walking around the area i probably saw ten people walking. This made the time there much more peaceful and was able to really enjoy the serenity of the place. After my peaceful break from the reality of China, i headed back into the city and to my hostel for dinner.

So there you have my one day tour of the Confucius complex in Qufu. Next stop Shanghai, the world's most populated city (24 million people!).

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