Tai'an, Qufu and Jinan (4th Trip)

Youssef’s 4^th trip and my 1^st in China (9^th to 12^th July); a four-day-long journey through 3 different cities in Shandong province that are an hour away from each other, and around 8 hours (by train) and 4 hours (by bus) away from Yantai . The cities are:

• Tai’an (Saturday-Sunday): where China’s most popular mountain is located (TaiShan). Height: 1545m
• Qufu (Sunday-Monday): hometown of Confucius, one of mankind’s famous teachers and philosophers in history as Aristotle and Socrates
• Jinan (Tuesday): the capital of Shandong, and where the 1000 Buddha Mountain is located.

At Taishan

As Dorothee, Youssef and I left for Tai’an to climb Taishan, we were determined to make it to the summit. We were of course met by disconcerting comments from our colleagues about how excruciatingly difficult the 1545m climb would be. But that did not dwindle down our high morale. We even refused to give in to the discomforting words in the Lonely Planet…”Be ready for strenuous Stairmasters work out.”

We left for Tai’an at around eight in the morning using China’s rail transportation system. Yes, we were consumed by sheer excitement at the notion of travelling in the train, like petty twelve year olds who were going for their first roller coaster ride. For Youssef it was the 1^st time by train. Not that I had not traveled by train before. In India, intercity travelling is largely done by the railways and I have my relatives scattered all over the vast country. Actually, it was the idea of travelling in China; a self sustained world within a world. Our journey was around eight long hours through the vast stretches of wheat and paddy rice fields and countless tiny towns towards the deep west region of the Shandong province. Most of the journey went with us slumbering on our berths because we had to muster and save all the strength for the climb. But there were occasional times when I got down to the nearest window and looked out at passing cities, wondering how quickly this country has developed.

Along the Railway

We reached Tai’an at around 6pm and walked towards Youth International Hostel. On our way, we dropped by a Chinese fast food restaurant. I don’t recall its name. As a tourist, you can never recall names of Chinese restaurant, probably because you don’t know how to decipher Chinese characters. But the food we were served was truly delectable. It’s exciting how, though seldom, Chinese cuisine can surprise you! Maybe we were too hungry then. But that meal was one of the best meals we had on our trip. It was
soupy noodle (a huge bowl of soup with noodles) mixed with carrots, spring onions and mushrooms that blended in perfectly with the right amounts of vinegar and soya sauce and some redolent Chinese spices. And this blend playfully treated us with surprising pieces of meat balls. But, again, the food was relatively expensive and we were forced to give up our discount coupons which we had received right outside the restaurant by a 12 year old enthusiastic promoter. Well, 15 Yuan per head isn’t too bad for a classy fast food outlet.

Dorothee and I advertising for the orange drink at the river in Tai'an

We then made our way through the city and reached Tai’an’s International Youth Hostel. The exterior appearance of this hostel was rather fascinating. It had a look of a traditional Chinese house with red Chinese lanterns hanging at the entrance. A little area on the left of the porch was designated to a bamboo garden. We left our bags in the hostel (free of charge) as we did not want to sleep the night there, since we will be on the top of the mountain till the next morning. We went across the city towards the mountain to start our climb. It was around 9pm.

Closely following our GPS, we reached the foot of the mountain. An array of shops flanked on the either side of the pathway that led to the ticketing booth. The shopkeepers, who were happily beaming at every uninterested passer, were implying something about the climb by the goods they were selling: fur coats rechargeable torches, walking sticks… Seeing that it was already dark, we decided on buying a cheap LED torch.

From above Taishan. The torches formed a uniform line that looked incredible, along with the city lights.

We bought the tickets (62 Yuan each) to the entrance at a discount with the help of a friendly Chinese student. The initial climb was easy since there weren't many stairs. But after half an hour walk, the climb became difficult and mostly consisted of steep steps. And the worst part of all this was that the steps were ridiculously narrow; almost half the length of my foot.

As we made our climb to the summit we came across several temples, souvenir shops and countless food vendors. Our climb took around five and half hours and, there were several instances where we almost gave up out of exhaustion and wondered why we were there. But eventually we reached the top at around 2am!

The summit was cold and Youssef and I were forced to rent army fur coats. The three of us then headed for the best spot and waited there with hundreds others for the celebrated sunrise of Mount Taishan. We actually napped for around 30 minutes waiting for sunrise. And after bearing the blistering cold of the summit for three whole hours, there was nothing to be seen. It was one of those disappointing days on Taishan when the sun’s completely enshrouded by the thick clouds. So like the others we made our way back to the city. The descend was relatively easy but still took 3 hours. The only dangerous aspect was that if you tripped on the way down the mountain you would take a couple of hundred Chinese to the hospital with you. It was very crowded. Fortunately, we reached the bottom at around 8:30am. Though we were dead tired we had breakfast in a restaurant and headed for Dai Temple.

The longest continuous stairs at Taishan. Should be careful not to slip!

Dai temple was like any other temple in China. It had the typical centuries old traditional Chinese architecture and beautiful botanical gardens which had some rare fauna that are only found in China. Soon we left the temple, collected our bags from the hostel and right away left for Qufu, the hometown of Confucius. It took 1.5 hours by bus.

'Thinking' at the Confucius Temple. Wondering and imagining how was life there more than 2500 years ago.

The Youth International Hostel in Qufu was situated right beside the Confucius Temple. It was like just any other hotel but it had a comforting aura that made one feel like home. Not surprisingly, there were many tourists besides us in Qufu. Since we were downright exhausted from our TaiShan’s climb, we quickly settled all the paperwork and headed for our rooms for a refreshing nap. That day we could not do much so we just relaxed and entertained ourselves by wandering at night around the city. Next morning as we were heading to Kong Miao (The Temple of Confucius), we visited the ticketing booth but sadly failed to get student discount as only Chinese students were eligible for it. The tickets to Confucian Temple, Mansion and Confucian Forest costed us 150 Yuan.

Hall of 'thinkers' at the Confucian Temple - Qufu

The Confucian temple being one of the biggest complexes in China, seemed endless. The temple was first built in 479 BC but then it repeatedly expanded over a period of 2000 years until it became huge complex covering 16,000 square meters of land. Now the whole complex has nine courtyards separated by several gates and contains 460 rooms. And a building right in the middle of complex is solely dedicated to a huge statue of Confucius. The rest of temple has ancient stone relics commemorates Confucius’s teachings

Connected to the Temple complex is the Confucian mansion (Kong Fu), where the direct descendents of Confucius resided. The place seemed like a mind goggling maze, with its 480 rooms spread over an area of 12,500 square feet. Soon after exiting the mansion we headed for the hostel where we slumbered for a couple of hours and later in the evening we left for the Confucian cemetery. Lying in the north of the town of Qufu is the Confucius cemetery which homes around 3600 tomb stones of noble titles that were descendants of Confucius in an area of 3.6 square kilometer. More surprisingly, around 200, 000 more descendants of Confucius were buried there over a period of 2000 years. And right in the middle sits the Tomb of the Confucius.

The Confucian Cemetery with thousands of tombs - Qufu

After returning from forest, we rented bicycles from the Youth Hostel for 8 Yuan and went around the town. Qufu, like many other cities in China, retains its historical look in its typical Chinese architecture. Throughout the main town, one could easily stumble across houses with four faced multi inclined roofs that have their ridges decorated with dragons. Also small temples that were constructed hundreds of years ago are situated all over town.

The next morning we left for Jinan. Having only half a day to spend in Jinan we rushed across the city to cover as many places as possible. Firstly, we visited the Thousand Buddha Mountain (Qianfoshan). Spread over an area of 2.4 hectares, this famous mountain resides many statues of gigantic Buddhas that are carved out from the mountain rock itself. However the place is more renowned for its famous Xingguo temple. We bought a round trip ticket for the cable car to the temple, which is situated at the peak and then walked across the mountain to a huge golden statue of Buddha, where we satisfactorily clicked many pictures.

The gigantic golden Buddha at thousand Buddha Mountain - Jinan

The next place we visited was Baotu Springs. Well there was nothing special about the spring in particular. The three outlets seemed to be constantly gushing out water but there was no highly famed thunderous sound of spring as pointed out by Jinan tourism industry on several websites. Or maybe the sound was subsided by the huge crowd that decided to visit the spring the very same day we had, despite the day being a weekday. Anyway, we disappointingly left for Lake Daminghu, which was the last of the most popular places in Jinan. However, on arriving at the lake we agreed on just taking a five minute walk along its periphery and leaving for the train. Lake Daminghu, like many other lakes, presented picturesque scenery; flights of exotic birds flying around, lotus plants floating on the surface, wild fauna growing on the shore and lazy tourist just boating across the lake…

In Baotu Spring - Jinan

 This was the end of our four days journey across the three famous cities in Shandong province. And though we had missed two days at work, the experience was worth every bit. Our team leaders had actually suggested that we skip work and go visit these places.