Qufu is famous for being the birthplace to the famous Chinese philosopher Confucius. It also houses the tomb of Confucius and as a result, plans to build a train station in the small town were scrapped on the basis that trains would disturb his tomb. Let me start with a bit of an introduction to Confucianism. Whilst Confucianism is not really a religion and more a philosophy, he is described and held in a similar kind of regard to the more religious figures. His philosophy in a nut shell describes the role of individuals within a larger group and guidelines on [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our next destination was a good old fashioned, traditional holiday destination. We were headed for the coastal town of Qingdao, which is famed for three things; it plays host to a number of China’s best beaches (for those of you who love watching sailing on TV{who doesn’t?} the Olympic sailing is taking place here), it was formerly inhabited by German’s and finally and most importantly, it is home to Tsingtao, the largest brewery in China. We arrived at the nearby train station and realised that due to China’s strange train ticketing policies (you can’t get a return leg ticket until you [View Full Entry]

---

---

9 more days,I have booked my ticket to Chengdu on 18th July.Before that I gotta cram for the exams!And then my summer vacation will begin! I have dreamed the last moment for the whole yaer,but I am really stressed when the moment coming.It's like a gamble,you gotta pick and choose areas of guess and focus what will be on the exams.It's always a gamble actually.What's more,it's will add more stress to study at the last moment!To add mroe stress I have spanish to learn. I gotta say that it's next to impossible to balance the exams and my spanish.Me gusta Espanol,speaking [View Full Entry]

---

---

"You're been spending your time/Thinking about why you think so much/If there was ever a time/now would be time to see your time is limited "Everybody here is a cloud/And everybody will evaporate since/You came up from the ground/From a million little pieces, have you found where your place is?" --Cloud Cult 6/13 12:15PM beginning of bus ride Every place is the same place until you force yr insides to change Vaporize the parts that try to change things Killyrself so identity can re-burst peeking newborn Cocoon children finally running naked around new place All the city signs & stores just [View Full Entry]

---

---

This past weekend was one of the few long weekends in China so Trevor and I decided to take advantage of the extra day and took a trip to Tai'an where we would climb Mount Taishan, one of the 5 sacred mountains in China. It is both a UNESCO heritage site and a world heritage site, the first in the world. The mountain is in Shangdong Province, the journey from Beijing on the fast train took just under 4 hours. The ride was smooth and rather pleasant. Arriving in Tai'an we were not too sure what to expect but we knew [View Full Entry]

---

---

Luckily for me, I met a guy who knew Qingdao really well the night before and he was an American! Scottie is an aeronautics specialist from Missouri who has been teaching English at QU for the last 3 years and his mom came over to teach as well within the last year. They took me to an international church that is held in a big banquet hall on the top story of the Haixin Dasha (Hisense Bldg). You have to have an international passport to get in because it is not a censored service but Taiwanese and Hong Kongers are allowed. [View Full Entry]

---

---

This morning we took the bullet train from Beijing to Qingdao. The ride took 6 hours and would have taken 11 by regular train, so I didn't complain. I was really jet-lagged and tired on this ride so I didn't snap as many pictures as I would have liked but I still got a few of the countryside. I had my camera locked up in my bag at the station so I didn't get any pictures of Beijing station either but definitely will when I go back in August. The train station looked just like it did in the 80s when [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello again my blog readers. I apologize for my long lapse in not publishing blog entries. A combination of factors is to blame. Partially it is just me being lazy, but also, the pace of my travels slowed down a lot for a while. I decided to take it easy for a couple of weekends because my travel companions, Matt and Michelle, scheduled a few trips that I did not really want to go on. Not too much has changed here. The weather has gone from cold to insanely hot (compounded by the pollution problem), and I have grown my hair [View Full Entry]

---

---

I first read about Mount Tai'shan in Michael Palin's book "Full Circle" and added it to the China 'must do' list!! It is a total of 6660 steps to the top and it's believed that you will live for 100 years if you make it all the way. Many Chinese emperors have done the climb, some more than once and many people make the pilgrimage to the top each year. It said in the guide book that it would take about two hours to get to the 'Midway to Heaven Gate' and another 2 hours to get to the 'South Gate [View Full Entry]

---

---

Where we went on our trip. [View Full Entry]

---

---