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"Qufu and Confucius"

Our mode of travel is to discover as we go. Jinan became a potential stop because we didn't want to go all the way to Shanghai, about 1500 km from Beijing, in one go. From the Lonely Planet "China" guide we learned about Taishan. Once we were in Tai'an we learned that Kong Fu's (Confucius') home town, Qufu, was only 60 km away. Jan had just finished reading a biography of him so it became a "can't miss". 

We made a one day trip from Tai'an to Qufu by minibus; it took about 1.5 hours each way. An annoying thing about buses in China is that they don't leave until they are filled. So we sat in Tai'an for about 45 minutes waiting for the bus to depart and then we cut short our visit to Qufu to catch the last bus back and then waited another 45 minutes on the partially filled bus.

We really liked the temple, although much has been destroyed. It is very spacious compared to those in Beijing. The adjoining residential park, where his descendants lived for centuries was also fun. We took a bicycle rickshaw to the edge of town to see his "grave" -- it was so marked about 1000 years after Kong Fu's death and may not be his; still, that was a millennium and a half ago and it has a lot of very old inscriptions.