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Published: February 2nd 2012
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Qufu 18 Jan - 22 Jan
The historical significance of Qufu is that it's where Confucius and his grandson are buried, plus there's the mansions and a temple in his name. The present significance is that our drinking buddies are there, so after arriving at the hostel we sent a message to Yogi and Chris and much to our surprise within about 20 minutes they suddenly appeared at our hostel room door, normally they're kept in school until the weekend and it was a Wednesday. Yogi and Chris had managed to get out by telling their Shifu that they're friends had arrived and they were lost on the motorway and didn't know how to get into town. I imagine Yogi's bargaining skills came out to play for that one. Persuasive bastard always convincing us to drink byjio while he hardly ever drank it himself (lightweight!). With our new room-mates, 2 American guys (Nick and Sean) and a Ukranian girl (Marsha), and the guys we all went off to eat a Korean. She was delicious.
That night we all ended up back at the hostel, and not much to our surprise ended up staying in the bar till close. Sean, Nick and Marsha are all studying Chinese in a relatively nearby town. Marsha can add another language to her repertoir, after Chinese it'll be at 7. Absolutely ridiculous for someone of 17 years. Chris and Yogi then having missed their nightly room check had to sneak back to school and we all had to go to bed as well, well more of a plank than a bed but it had a sheet and a cover, the next day we woke up with slightly sore hip bones.
Next day went round some of the Confucius stuff, temple and mansions and that, the thing is the temples really start to become very familiar and although always impressive, once you've seen one... Confucius never even lived in these mansions, they were built for his decendants who presumably milked the fact they were related to the man for all it was worth, fair play to them. We all went to see loads of old stone plaques with chinese writing on them, we're pretty sure one of them was an ancient pornographic story with a car crash and a possible abduction by aliens. We should start up an ancient hyroglyphic detective agency. Marsha loves rocks so much we couldn't tear her away!
Friday day we got up early at 08:30 with the intention of climbing Mount Tai which is the highest holy mountain in China with about 6500 steps (or something). Basically a massive stairmaster. It was only an hour and a half away from Qufu but somehow unbeknown to us we managed to arrive there at half 3. We just have no idea how that was possible but time just seemed to slip away. So we decided to get to the cable car for the easy way up and walk down. Only half an hour into the steps did we realise that the cable car was still a 2 hour walk away, so we carried on to see a herd of mountain goats traversing the slopes a lot easier than we were. They looked like a little army of goats on a mission to cross the mountain possibly to dispose of a magical ring. Goatalf the Grey (christened by Nick) led their way.
After a while we managed to get closer to the cable car only to ask and be told it was closed. Mission failed. With no prospect of ever reaching the top before nightfall it was cheap mountain noodles and a walk back down.
Eventually got back to the hostel to meet up with the Shoalin guys for a few, where a competition insued to put a bottle the furthest. Where only two points of contact with the ground are allowed and with two people you've gotta kinda use one of the people as a fishing pole to place the bottle and return behind the line safely. Probably easier to understand with the pictures to hand. But we did pretty well actually, me and Bex beat Yogi and Chris's attempt but were smashed by some lanky Scandinavians also training in the school. Then realising that both me and Nick have the lank factor ourselves the old Britsh and American team-up was a success again. There's nothing that can't be done when the UK and the US join forces!
Duncan.
That same night the plan was to go and seek out the fun that is locked away in what the Chinese call KTV. Yes, you've guessed it, kareoke! After fun and games at the hostel bar we also popped into a local favourite of the kung-fu guys. It was a trendy bar with a skilled barkeeper who showed off with a dice trick where by moving the cup back and forth at a certain angle and speed he managed to stack 5 dice under the cup, pretty impressive! As beers were flowing so were moods and all laughing aside there was also room for some testostoronic competition (yes I just made up a word... maybe testostmoronic would be better). After arm wrestling and kung-fu forms sorted out the boys from the men we decided to head off to KTV. Drunken emotions meant the return to the hostel for Nick but the 6 of us managed to get into KTV even though closing time had already been announced. A crate of beer did the trick and we got into the swing and bounce (bouncy disco floor) of our private KTV room until ridiculous a' clock in the morning, grand!
Next morning we said a brief goodbye to Nick, Sean and Marsha as they had to return to friends and I'm guessing colleges (and other travels). We visited the last of the major Confucious sites in the afternoon which was a beautiful cemetry/park. Duncan was most taken aback and constantly exclaimed how beautiful the surroundings were, what can I say, when you really like something.... you really like something! On the way back from the park, to meet up with the guys in the hostel for the last time, we stumbled across what we first thought was maybe a Spring Festival tradition. Once deciding not to watch and stand around much longer to what was happening to our dismay we realised what we thought was a happy tradition was probably a funeral tradition as women and men were crying and ashes were burnt and smashed on the floor. Feeling quiet guilty of wandering past in the wind of the smashed ashes we got back to the hostel with mixed feelings. Oh well, time to calm the nerves with a couple of drinking games and the famed byjio (which I really really really hate by the way!). Some have compared byjio to toilet water, I'd agree although, I'd rather not beg to think what toilet water tastes like either. Although tempted to venture out once again we kept the night a short one as we were faced with an early morning and 5 hour trip to Shanghai.
Becca x
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