Yesterday morning very early Dan and I got back from Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius. All in all it was a good trip, although not the most relaxing one possible. Qufu is in Shandong province, the same province as Qingdao, but it is a good 12 hours by train and bus to the city. There are no trains that go to Qufu, the best way to get there is to take a train to a nearby city and then take the bus. We decided to take a train to Jinan, the capital of Shandong. It's a 7.5 hour train ride from Qingdao and a 3 hour bus ride from Qufu. Originally, we heard that it took 3 hours to get to Jinan, so we assumed that it would be about a 5 hour trip total to get to Qufu. We bought train tickets leaving Qingdao in the afternoon to a random city near Qufu and assumed we would get in late in the evening. Much to our suprise, we looked at the time schedule and realized we wouldn't get in until 2:30 in the morning, about a 9-10 ride. Moreover, the tickets we had bought were hard seat, which meant that basically we would have to be sitting on a plastic bench for all of those 9 hours. We managed to go back and change tickets, instead we got a sleeper train to Jinan that left Qingdao at about 9 and got in to Jinan at 5:30 the next morning. (We found out later that they have just introduced the three hour train to that city, it does run several times a day, but none were convenient for us and of course all of the tickets were completely sold out.) We traveled hard bed, which is fine, although the train was not quite as clean or new as the trains I had been on from Beijing, and we were at the very top of three bunks, were it was at least 100 degrees. Moreover, two people were snoring so loudly it was impossible to sleep. We would hear random thumps, presumably from fed-up people whacking them, and then there would be silence for about 5 minutes, but then the snoring began again.
There are three bus stations in Jinan, one conveniently located right next to the train station. OUr somewhat outdated guide book said that no buses there went to Qufu, but we decided to check it out. Sure enough, none of the buses had signs to Qufu. Just to make sure, I went to the ticket office and asked the woman if they didn't have buses to Qufu. She answered "keyi" which basically means, "could." She told us to buy a ticket to some other random town and ask bus driver to drop us off at Qufu. We got on the bus, which was completely filled with people who looked like peasants returning to the fields. THey kind of looked at us incredulously, because I guess no tourist in their right mind would want to visit the town the bus was heading for. Finally one passenger asked if we were teachers, and I said yes, and he nodded knowingly. The bus was actually quite nice, and cleaner than the train, although the bus driver drove like a complete maniac. At one point, we were driving the wrong way on the highway, and the bus driver wanted to cut across a divide to get into the right lane, but there was a construction barrier up. There was a 15 minute showdown with the construction workers which involved us parked facing the wrong direction in a lane while the bus driver and several passengers got out to argue with the construction workers. It didn't work, and eventually the driver drove in reverse for about 100 feet on the highway and then did a U-turn across 4 lanes of traffic, none of which seemed to slow down. Amazingly, Dan mananged to sleep through the entire thing. When we got to the outskirts of Qufu, the bus driver stopped and yelled Qufu, so we got off the bus. Despite the fact we were standing right off the highway, there was still at taxi, who ever so helpfully took us into town and right to a hotel, basically telling us it was the only hotel in Qingdao (I wonder how much his commission was). The hotel was called the Confucius Mansion Hotel (well, actually the "Confucius Massion Hotel") and was a hotel attempting to be much fancier than it had the facilities for. We ended up with quite a nice room though, after bargaining it down from 388 kuai to 170 kuai (45 dollars to about 20 dollars). It came with complimentary toiletries, cable, air conditioning, two beds and was quite clean, so it seemed like a fairly good deal. It was also directly across the street from the Confucious temple and mansion, so it was a very convenient location.
Qufu is a small city of about 200,000 people, and over a fifth of the downtown area is taken up by the confucius temple and the family complex. Both are enormous, having been greatly expanded in the Ming and Qing empires. Confucius died about 2500 years ago with somewhat modest means, so it's not surprising nothing is left from his actual life. Starting in the Song dynasty, emperors began to build up Confucius' house and shrine, and during the Qing dynasty, one of his distant descendents (of the 76th generation), some sort of lord, expanded his home to its present size of more than 480 rooms with courtyards and gardens. The temple is also quite grand, although not as big. About a mile walk away from the mansion and on the outskirts of Qufu is the Confucius forest. It is where he is buried along with 100,000 of his descendents. It's quite a large forest and refreshingly ungroomed. We walked along a stone path that makes a loop around the forest and looked at ancient gravestones poking out among the trees and high underbrush. Every once and awhile there would be a shrine to one of his more famous descendents or a bunch of statues. Near the front entrance is the shrine to Confucius, his son, and grandson. It was actually a very pleasant and quiet place, although the mosquitoes were in full force, and I suppose the lack of other tourists meant they focused all their attention on Dan and me.
I'll write more about Qufu later, but I have to run now, so consider this the first in a two part installment (Dan can add the revised version later).
