Man, where to begin! Woke up at 5am to get ready for our excursion to Qufu, which is where Confucius lived throughout his life and is buried at. It took about six hours to get there from Tianjin, and I slept most of the way there. (Sleeping is real hard to do in Tianjin. The city is loud with horns and people yelling all night long). Once we finally arrived in Qufu, we got lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. It was very fancy and they served us food like we had at our welcoming banquet a few days ago. After the meal, we got back in our bus which took us to where we needed to be in order to begin our lesson on Confucius.

We first explored Confucius’ temple, which was full of smaller temples and gateways that led to a huge statue of Confucius himself. We had a local tour guide who was very fluent in English, so it made it easier to fully understand the history we were seeing with our own eyes. As we walked from the front of the temple to the back, we made many stops, took many pictures, and got a great history lesson on who Confucius exactly was, what he done, and how he still matters in Chinese culture to this day. Once we were done with his temple, we took a tour to his mansion, which oddly enough, Confucius never lived in himself. His descendants lived there many years following the completion of the mansion. We saw the rooms that his descendants actually lived in. This mansion was used until the early 1900’s which is astonishing that it lasted for very many centuries. Once finished with the mansion, it was time to travel to the forest, which is where Confucius and his descendants are buried. As we made our way through the forest, our tour guide made stops and told us what we were seeing and who was buried there. At the end of the forest was Confucius’ tombstone which was surrounded by many offerings that followers of Confucius had sacrificed today. It was great seeing how even over 3000 years Confucius still had a huge influence in Chinese culture.

After the long day of walking and sweating, it was time to head to our next stop, which was the city of Taian. It is here where Mount Tai is closely located, which is what is on our itinerary for tomorrow.

jthale

My name is Josh Hale. I am a Junior majoring in Business Geography. I anticipate graduating in Fall 2013. I am from a small town in Tennessee, and this is my first experience traveling outside the United States. I am looking forward to seeing the country of China from a geographical perspective as well as a business one. I hope to give my followers an idea of exactly how life is in China, and hope to enhance their knowledge of one of the upcoming economic powers of the world.

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