Qufu and Confucius

We went to Qufu, Confucius' hometown. We actually weren't planning on going but then we decided to try to see sunrise on Tai Shan, the holiest of China's five holy mountains. That left us with a day of nothing to do. Of course all the Chinese people thought we were nuts for even thinking about bypassing Qufu, but we don't really appreciate these sorts of things because we simply don't know enough of the history and culture. Anyhow, we did end up going but for somewhat odd reasons. Barry wanted to see the styrofoam pigs in the old town as promised by Lonely Planet and I wanted to see the forest/cemetery because we read about it in class. As such we chose to bypass both the Kong family mansion and temple, the main attractions in Qufu.

The old town did not disappoint. We saw the fake pigs and even got to participate in a Chinese maze and do archery. We also learned a bit about Confucius. Apparently he was very ugly. The forest was okay too. Supposedly Confucius' students each planted a tree from their hometown. The park has over 100,000 trees and 100,000 graves, including one for Confucius. Unfortunately, it seems Confucius is probably not there as the whole place was built by his descendents after he died.