Turning 23 in Yangshuo

The raft floating away without us was one of the most fortunate events that has happened to us so far. As we had to catch a bus to a port 2 hours from Guilin get on a well built bamboo raft (with motor) for two hours down the Li River, which was incredible. Then hop another bus 2 hours to Yangshuo. It was said that us bamboo rafting down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo would have took us three days, thank lord we gave it a miss, haha. The karst mountain scape was crazy, imagine thousands of huge slim vertical rocks shooting up out of the ground and water in a variety of shapes and sizes and you are on your way to visualizing Yangshuo.

We stayed at Monkey Janes in Yangshuo, named Monkey Janes, because Jane...the owner, looks like a monkey. She was funny but a little too westernised, this was probably down the lad from Durham named Dan who lived there with her, he was cool though. We also randomly bumped into a lad called Chris who lived about ten minutes away from Elliot back home in Croyden, they didnt know each other though. He was the spitting image of Eddie Gordo and even had some capoera skills behind him too. He joined us throughout our time in Yangshuo.

Our first adventure in Yangshuo was a trip to the mud caves. To get to the caves we had to take a boat through a hole in one of the karsts (watching our heads in the process) and sail through to a opening in the cave. Here we walked the length of the cave, swimming at the very far end in deep water pools, then bathing in mud about half way back, and finally relaxing in some hot springs back at the begining, a lot of activity for one cave dont ya think? On the way back to town we stopped off at moon hill, a natural bridged shaped monolith poking out of the ground, which is climbable, so of course we had to ascend. As the area was closing within the hour and the sun was setting we had to be quick, so on a full stomach the four of us bolted it to the top just in time for some great pictures. Back at the bottom we had a fair trek back to town (15 km maybe?) and we were a little worn out after the running so we managed to flag down two motorbikes and hitch a ride back to Yangshuo, 2 on each bike. The guy driving mine and Maj's bike was definitely pissed, his breath reaked of rice wine! And his driving sucked too.

Oh plus, this day fell on my birthday so it was a great way to spend my 23rd. This time last year I was getting high in Amsterdam, how the time flies. In the evening we played beer pong at Monkey Janes, and I was awarded a free T-shirt, since it was my birthday and all. Elliot was autistically good at beer pong, hardly ever missing a god damn shot. He smoked us all, but as beer pong goes, the more games you play, the more mash-up your gonna get. His night ended by passing out on the balcony area and getting sexually abused by everyone, except for me and Maj of course. We were reading. Oh, one point I must make is that this hostel had Tekken 6 on the x-box, and I had to rep the ends by destroying all of the competition in the room.

So after an amazing birthday and night we of course felt a little weak the following day. We decided to relax along the banks of the Li River listening to songs and playing some easy going game that involved throwing rocks at a marker, with a curling esc point system. Me and Chris did a swim across the river to a nice little diving rock, and we all pulled a moony to the Chinese tourists having a lovely day of sailing. The cameras were out as usual.

On our last full day we hired bikes and went on huge cycle through the country. Chris had been around Yangshuo a little longer than us and showed us a great route, crossing farms, rivers and of course, all of the hills/karsts. On our return to Yangshuo, we couldnt help but be pulled into climbing one of the gigantic karsts. It had to be done. The climb was difficult at times because of all the overgrowth but we scaled it, and the view was phenomenal. I could only wish that the Peak district had this kind of landscape, truly breathtaking. And a definate contender for the number one spot in China.

Yangshuo photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3214311011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Rafting Dream from Guilin

We arrived at 6.30 am and with a crap nights sleep, we was ready for bed again but they didn't have any beds available at that time so that meant we had to kill some time before we can have shut eye. Danny and Elliot discussed the idea of building a raft in Guilin, so that we can row our way down to Yangshuo so we set out to the other side of the river with no materials and a pen knife for our tool. For some reason we thought we were going to find huge bamboo trees, which we were able to cut down (with our pen knife) and find some rope to bind it all together-if only it was that easy. After about 20 minutes of looking around, we found a built bamboo raft tied up to a tree (it was like it was meant to be). So with our great engineering skills, we decided to take this one and try and make it better. After about 30 minutes, realising we didn't aquire the skills to develop this raft into the Titanic, we slowly walked back to our hostel with the dream still alive. The plan was to get up early on Tuesday morning (4am) and start our venture down the river. Later in the evening, we decided it would be wise to see a Chinese gymnastic/acrobatic show while we're in the country, so we managed to find one on that evening. We were the only foreigners there and we found some good seats right in front of the stage so we could study their movements. It was a mixture of gymnastics, acrobatics and ballet that told a story of how the Chinese people have developed, or atleast that's what I got from it. Obviously boys being boys we found the acrobatic stuff amazing with them doing so many crazy stunts but it was a first for us all to see a combination and it is definately recommended by us if you're ever in China.

first move saw him crashing on the floor and his second snapped his board (what a flop!). He got up and saw the positive by saying that he could use the board as a paddle on our raft with our hockey stick that we stole from the luggage storage from the hostel.



The next morning, we made our own way to the rice terraces, which is the main reason for tourists visiting this place. It took us about 4hrs on a 2 bus journey with some proper locals on it. The dragon backbone rice terraces are over a huge hilly/mountain area and there is a trek that the book recommends to do to see all the best views. This was what we wanted to do but we got lost big time and when we asked for directions with our limited chinese, they pointed the same way we came but that was too far to go back, so we carried on walking for 30-40 mintues and realised we weren't gonna make the last bus back. So we had to hitch a ride on the back of some hill billy truck and managed to get a minibus to the bus station for the last bus back to Guilin.




After spending the evening at a supermarket to stock up for our journey, we were ready for our raft. We got up at 4am the following morning, went into the luggage room and stole a rubber ring to aid the floating of the raft and made our way down to the river in the dark. We found the raft with our torch (see we were really prepared) and carried the beast down to the river. Danny and Elliot got on first, with me holding on to the rope, testing if it would float. They were barely floating but we thought we may as well give it a go, so we all got on and the raft tipped straight away with us causing a huge splash and losing my flip flop in the process. Elliot, my hero, grabbed my flip-flop in time like he was catching fish with his bare hands. We saw the raft floating away with the current and with it was the skateboard, hockey stick, the rubber ring and our dreams of rafting down to Yangshuo. We got back to the hostel all dripping and we tried to leave as quick as we can but the guard wouldn't let us leave, asking about the rubber ring. We tried to deny all knwoledge because he couldn't speak English but the english speaking receptionist came down and we ended up paying for it. Our dreams have been shattered but you got to admit-What a fucking story!!

Guilin photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3213609011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Big Dogs in Macau

Just to put another pin on the map we headed for Macau, about an hour west of hong kong by boat. Since Elliot was travelling a similar route to us, it only made sense for him to join us, he stuck with us right through to the South of Vietnam.

It was strange in Macau because it had a very European feel to the place, minus all the Chinese. It used to be a Portugese colony up until December 1999 and Portugese is still classed as the islands official language along with Mandarin. Today, it is basically the Las vegas of the East. There are so many casinos bundle together, including some big name ones like the MGM Grand, Wynn, and The Venetian. Although the big boy in Macau is called The Grand Lisboa (a little praise for Portugal there).

Again this was only a short stop on the travel, and to say we spent only one full day here we got a lot done. The evening of arrival we decided to check out the casino's, mainly the grand lisboa. It was cool to watch the big timers throwing away 1000 dollar chips like they were worth 50p. Idiots if you ask me. We didnt do any gambling mind you, since we were dressed like scallys anyway we thought we might aswell behave like 'em.

We saw one of the nicest bootys ever in Macau too. The only problem is, we didnt actually know if it was a woman or not, haha. Elliot was convinced but me and Maj were a bit unsure. Great booty whatever the case.

The Macau museum was pretty interesting, it described how Portugal settled upon the land and used it as a docking station for the transportation of Asian goods by sea. The rest of the day was spent walking around the island admiring the colonial buildings and churches, big Christian population here, and checking out the views from the top most spot of the island. It was much worth the stop over.

Macau photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3213527011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Chinese New Year in Hong Kong

With it being one of the major cities of the world, we were looking forward spending some time here, especially in the build up of the Chinese new year. We set off early on Friday morning from Guangzhou and it took 3 hours to get to Hong Kong including customs. I had a slight problem with my photo (it's becoming normal now), probably because I had long hair and a bit of a beard but they let me through after i showed them my driving license.

Hong kong was a lot busier than I thought with people still shopping at 4am for their bargains but with he metro system in place, it makes it so much easier getting around. Once we checked into our hostel, our first priority was to get a new chinese visa, which took 7 days ( we wanted to stay for 5) and cost 40 pound compared to the 16 pound in China. After the paperwork, we met up with Greg and Elliot, who we met in Beijing and had alraeady planned our meeting in Hong Kong and started planning our week in Hong Kong.

There was not much interesting to see in Hong Kong apart from the Victoria peak, which we visted at night to avoid the mist that was around over the past few days. It was amazing to see the whole city in lights with the tall buildings towering over everything. We also took a stroll along the avenue of stars, where there are plaques of famous chinese stars. The only ones we knew were Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Bruce Lee (he had his own statue too). We also spent a day trekking up to the Big Buddha, which involved walking through the forrest. We've already seen 2 big buddha's so this wasn't too amazing but the trek up was amazing and a lot better than getting the cable car up.

Like i said, the main purpose of Hong Kong was to experience the Chinese New Year in the big city. The parade was busy as you can imagine but very different to the traditional chinese one that we expected. It was more of an exhibition of different countries around the world representing what they do in their part of the world. We had Notting Hill carnival represting the UK!! The second day, we went to see the fireworks display of the sky scrapers of Hong Kong but that was over in a bang (haha).

Elliot, the skaterboy from the south, has decided to join us for the rest of China and travel Vietnam with us until he has to leave- I think he has found his love for the northerners and this was his reason to join us (true story). All in All Hong Kong is a crazy city that never sleeps. It's expensive in relation to budgeting and the food over there is not too brilliant BUT at least the majority of them speak English. We were actually looking forward to coming back into China for the food-now that's crazy!

Hong Kong photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3213019011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Heat wave in Guangzhou

Guangzhou is one of the easiest cities to transfer over to Hong Kong, so for this reason we took a quick stop over to see the city. Unexpected to both of us the city was huge, I mean everywhere in China is big, but Guangzhou is something else. We stayed across the river from the main city on Bar Street, as it was known to the locals. We didn't get up to that much in Guangzhou since there isnt that much to do there. We did however go for a game of tennis, which was nice for a change, but the heat soon got the better of us, other than Xiamen, which was warmer than usual, it was our first encounter since India with really high temperatures...... here comes the sun.

We went to a massive park within the city to have a little walkies, get an ice cream etc, and we ended up finding the recreational area of the park, boy how fun it was. We watched a few games of intense ping pong, then took a walk through the gym area, where I found a elderly fella, who looked to be a janitor of some sort with his massive set of keys jingling by his side, who could do an incredible number of rotations on a pull up bar. He would do a pull up, then flip all the way over the bar (feet first) and repeat. I could do two, he had good technique man. On our exit I was offered to have a quick bash at table tennis, where once again I was humiliated. Chinese barstads! It was strange seeing all the adults and elderly folk getting so much use out of there local park and its equipment, I asked Maj 'I wonder why people back home dont act this way?' His response, 'Cuz they'll get pointed at and be called peado's'..............He had a point.



We met two girls here called Abbie and Nadine who were also going to Hong Kong and south-east Asia. We had already planned to meet up with Elliot in Hong Kong and a few other guys, so we decided to invite the girls along too. Chinese new year was just around the corner and we had a great set-up ready for the celebrations.

We also saw the Gunagzhou west tower, which ranks at number 9 on the list of tallest skyscrapers 1,444 ft.

Guangzhou photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3212567011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Sunny Xiamen

Sunday is classed as the day of rest and it literally was for us. We slept for 12 hours, did some laundry, had something to eat, walked to the coast and watched friends for hours-now some would class that as a perfect day!

The next day, we got a boat across to Gulang Yu, which is a small touristic island across from Xiamen. Today was the first day the sun came out so we were out in shorts and tee's-a first in China. The island had tourisitc sights, which were dotted around the island and they were all man made so that didn't really interest us so we walked around the whole island, which took us about 2hrs.

I stopped to take a photo of a Chinese beach on a sunny day, which was rare, when a group of young girls approached Danny, to practice their English. One girl called Angela had a whole script of a story that she had memorised and performed it to Danny with a bow at the end- we couldn't stop laughing all the way through. We spent the evening watching friends again as I'm trying to educate Danny on the importance of friends in your life-how nearly everything funny that happens is referenced in friends, but we still got a long way to go.

Xiamen Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3212831011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Zhejiang Province

With new visa's collected we caught a train to Wenzhou. Plan A was to make it all the way to the rural villages of Nanxijiang. Plan A was a failiure. When we arrived in Wenzhou it was already getting late, and the language barrier since Shanghai had recommenced. For some reason unknown to us, the accomodation prices in Wenzhou are really steep in comparison to the rest of the places we have visited so far. We decided to catch a Y1 ferry across the river to the city of Oubei. Here we stumbled into the first hotel and after an intense chinglish conversation, we managed to get a room for Y100 for a night, unbelievable luck. We went to a Muslim owned restaurant next door to get a late night snack and we met the cutest little kids ever. They were scruffy little gits, but their attempts at talking to us in English was so funny. The older lad, who was working for the family buisness served us our food and was trying to learn new words. We gave him a tip when we left and he was overjoyed. No doubt big poppa took the tip for himself.

The next morning we headed for Nanxijiang. It was further from Wenzhou than expected but really cheap to get there by bus. We went to 2 small rural villages in Nanxijiang, both really beautiful. Small canals ran through the villages with the odd waterwheel and pagoda dotted around making the place nothing but picturesque. This was defiantely the most rural place we had visited so far in China, and hardly a soul spoke a word of English. Good thing our Chinese was getting better, liang-er newro mien, xiexie. (2 beef noodles, thankyou).



The amount of stares we got in this area was unreal. Its probable that we were the first westerners some of these people had ever seen. They lived in cobblestone villages with their own farms and barns and fields surrounding their homes to provide them with a livelyhood. Only problem was that there was no disposable unit, so the amount of rubbish that built up in the streets and canals was beyond dangerous. But these people manage to live with it (somehow), and it only demises the beauty of their villages by a fraction. Truly stunning.



Zhejiang Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3212574011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Side Trek

With us having a week to kill renewing our visa and wanting to be in Hong Kong for the Chinese New year, we decided to do a 3-day mission to other areas in our itinerary. First stop was Hangzhou, which started off in a disaster as it was absolutely pissing it down (first rain we've seen in China though) and we wanted to cycle around. Hangzhou has a huge picturesque lake but also green tea plantations surround the area so we decided to man up and got some girly bikes with baskets on the front. The cycle route went through the countryside villages, a forrest surrounded by plantations and a river running throught the whole valley. It was very green and lush, which was very different to the othet tourist areas in China. We were drenched for our 3hr bus jounrey to Huangshan (Tunxi) for the next stop in our side trek.

Tunxi is at the foot of Huangshan mountain (the yellow mountain) so we decided to climb it the next day to get it out of the way. We started at 6.30am on a bus to the start of the steps and we started our ascend at 8.30am. We climbed up the eastern steps by accident, with the western steps being our primary route to the top but we didn't realise this until we got to the top. We've had good luck on our side when we've climbed up mountains compared to the other travellers but today was not the day, as it was misty all the way up with snow hitting us halfway through. We got to the highest peak that was open and it took us approx 2 hrs to get to the top but there wasn't much to see suprisingly to say we were at the top (At least give us a chocolate bar-tight gets). We went down the western steps, onto a cable car and a bus back to our hostel. This was a planned cable car return as we've not been one on our trip but we chose a bad day for it with it being misty.

Our final trip before heading back to Shanghai was Xidi, which was our first rural village in China. A two bus journey got us there (1.5 hrs) but we was greeted by rain again. It cost us Y40 to walk around a village, to see how the villagers live-thats facking rediculous! We walked around getting lost in this small village and then went to highest viewpoint once we found our way back, and that's when we reailised that the village is a lot bigger than we thought. The rest of the day was spent getting back to Shanghaiw with a combination of 3 buses and 1 train-Lucky us ey!!

Huangzhou photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2858729011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Huangshan photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2859097011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Xidi photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3212396011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Shanghai and Suzhou

Using yet another wonderful metro system in Shanghai we reached the well hidden hostel with fair ease. The bar area was being renovated at the time so dorm beds there were quite cheap for how nice the place was.

Since Beijing we have been trying to get our visa's extended at the local PSB's, but they all took too long to process. As Shanghai had a lot of places to visit within the vicinity we had no choice but to get them extended here. The process took a week (longer than expected, probably because of the upcoming Chinese hoilidays), which meant we would venture even further out to Huang Shan before coming back to Shanghai to collect the passports in a weeks time. This 30 day extension would easily last us until Hong Kong, where we would need to re-apply in order to re-enter the mainland.

We took the metro towards the Bund area of Shanghai, where the famous cities skyline is best viewed from. The famous architectural landmarks in Shanghai consist of the Oriental Pearl Tower, that looks like some weird alien spaceship, the Shanghai financial building (494.5m), which is the tallest in Shanghai and at the moment stands at the 3rd highest building in the world, trailing only the Taipei 101, and the monstorous Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The Jinmao Tower, which has the highest hotel in the world within it, is also an iconic sight for the city. We decided to go the observation deck of this building to get a better view of the city. As we entered, there was a sign on the wall sporting the words 'no climbing', this was placed here after the human spider-man - Alain Robert climbed the outside of the Jinmao tower in 2001 unsuccesfully, but returned 6 years later to achieve his goal. He got jailed for five days in a Chinese prison and was expelled from China.

The Shanghai museum was free entry, so we thought we might as well have a gander. It was four stories high and had a ranged variety of exhibits on all types of chinese history. Including money, furniture, jade, brass and pottery sculptures. It was worth the visit.



On one of our days in Shanghai we met up with a friend of mine called Clara. She used to live in Leeds my 1st year of uni and we were supposed to be meeting in Hong Kong, where she lives, but her work in the olympic commitee sent her to Vancouver for the olympic games at that time. We also found Chris again, the American from Tai'an and Qufu. The four of us decided on a day trip over to Suzhou, a very pretty little town, with canals old bridges and pagodas dotted around. Although Clara speaks Cantonese her Mandarin was far better than any of ours, the ordering of tickets and food and asking for directions was made so much easier that day. I tried some pork dumplings for the first time in Suzhou, they were great.


Shanghai & Suzhou Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2858498011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Nanjing

We arrived at Nanjing very early in the morning and with us both of us having shocking nights sleep, we decided it was best to sleep for a few hours lol. It did take a while to get to the hostel though because all the taxi drivers in China think they know where they going but don't have a clue-bit like women!!




When we did get up, our breakfast was based at a bakery store and feasted on cakes and buns. Once we were sugared up, we went to hunt for a shop that burns DVD's and only found a modelling shop by accident. We were sat there waiting for the DVD whilst munching on these cakes (bet the models hated us), when the two women working there signalled to me I had nice eyelashes and were proper jealous-don't blame them like!




With us leaving the next morning, we only had a few hours of sunlight to see Nanjing's main attractions. It seemed that all the attractions were on Zijin mountain so we got the local bus there now that we're pro's at this travelling malarky. Usually it's a great view of the city from the top of this small mountain but with it being misty, we gave it a miss. Instead we visited Dr Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum, who was one of the first people to bring democracy to China. His tomb is at the top of this huge stairway of 392 steps ( Danny counted and got a different total!) but when we walked back down, we got asked by two old ladies for a photo. As we're foreigners and have a brown and white so we always get asked. So we let them have photo's with us but then they asked for our number. One lady was old enough to be my mother and the other one was old enough to be my grandmother, We told them we didn't have a number so they asked for our email addresses and i don't know why becasue they couldn't speak a word of english. Danny gave the younger one his and he gave the older one mine-the fucker! After the brief visit, we walked through the forrest to see the Lingu Temple/pagoda and the beamless hall. There really wasn't much interesting to see in Nanjing but it's another place we visited.




Nanjing Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2858263011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Tai'an, Tai Shan and Qufu

24 hours we spent on a train from Haerbin to Tai'an, 1 full day of travelling, it flew by but it was our longest yet, probably will hold the record of the trip at a guess.

The small city of Tai'an in the Shandong province lies at the base of another Sacred mountain of China, Tai Shan (If you havent figured it out yet, 'shan' means mountain). It is smaller than Emei Shan at 1545m, but with the help of a little wind, was nearly as difficult to ascend. Legend has it that anyone, who is anyone in the last 3000 years of Chinese history has made the ascent to the top of Tai Shan. We had to join them on this pilgrimage. If we were to label Emei Shan it would definately be the Misty Mountain, Tai Shan was the Windy Mountain. That was the only reason this mountain was fairly difficult to climb, it got mad cold and even windier once we reached the summit. We didn't hang around. Just nailed some Newro chow mien (Beef noodles) and rolled back down.

Before we climbed the mountain we also paid a visit to the Dai Temple. This is commonly part of the pilgrimage before climbing Tai Shan. Like the Indian temples, the Chinese temples were beginning to blend together now, they use some beautiful architecture with the most intricate details being perfectly applied, every piece of tile, column, ceiling, wall, door, window frame, and sometimes even the floor would have some crazy Chinese calligraphy or dragon pattern embossed in them. Quite stunning for the fact they were finished many years ago with only basic tools.

The hostel in Tai'an was really nice, there were few people staying there, but the beds were soft and huge, the rooms were cozy and warm and there was the nicest Sichuan (Province of Chengdu) restaurant around the corner. We met two Chinese guys who took us to the restaurant and even ordered our meals for us. I had some fried pork with peppers and I'm not kidding it was AMAZING, the pork was salted and crispy and the peppers and the sauce were a perfect compliment, if your not jealous, you should be, if you dont eat pork, you should. Gotta dig the swine. We also met a yank named Chris who swapped me a John Grisham for a John Grisham.

From Tai'an we took a day trip to Qufu with a girl we met at our hostel called Lilian. Qufu is most famous for being the birth and death place of the founder of Confucianism, the Sage Confucius (551-479 BC). He lived in poverty throughout his life and rarely recorded any of his theories or opinions on life, but his dedicated followers recorded his work and made it widely known through the country. Although his teachings did not become popular until after his death, Confucius' descendants, the Kong family, benefited greatly from their wise ancestor.

The Kong Family mansions, Confucius Temple and the Confucius forest are located in Qufu. The forest is actually a graveyard, where Confucius and his descendants are buried. We had a walk around the three sites and took in the history of Confucius and his work. Its a shame the guy never got to witness the effect of his works. Lilian was from Shanghai and gave us advice on how and where to spend our time when we got there. Big thanks to her. When we dropped her off at the hostel in Qufu we met Chris again, we arranged to stay in the same hostel in Shanghai so he could get in on the Lilian recommendations.

Tai'an/Qufu Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2857532011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/