Day Fourteen: Confucian Temple and Forest, bus to Ji'nan

Sunday was a long day. We first spent quite some time making our travel plans to Beijing for later that night. We ran into a lot of problems with this endeavor, but the details are rather boring. Anyway, while we were out we saw the most adorable thing- this cute pug puppy (another Tatanka look-a-like) was trying to get this horse to play. He kept running all around it- tail up in the air, barking and ready to wrestle.
We also passed over this beautiful canal.
And check this out. That's not even a walkie talkie, but a cell phone.
As we were on our way to see some of the Kong Zi (Confucian) sights we were walking down the street and this department store was having a grand opening so they had cannons, balloons and lots of confetti to celebrate.
The cannons going off spooked the horses who ran the other way but apparently it only made this young child more interested.
We found this "restaurant" and had a great little meal.
While sitting there one of the balloons the store had given me popped and I let out a surprised little yelp which made all these men around me laugh quite a bit.
So then it was on to the Kong Lin, the Confucian Forest where Confucius and his descendants have been being buried for the last 2000 years. It's a huge artificial forest with 1000s of tombs throughout. We hired these great ladies to ride us around the forest on their bikes.
Luckily they come to work prepared for the hilly terrain with their sporty biking shoes.
We offered to do the driving for a little bit, but unfortunately I was too weak and uncoordinated. Gordon rode her lady around for maybe a quarter mile
but after trying to ride my lady around about 5-6 times and her almost falling off every time, she decided she was done with that game.
So it was back to the rear for me. Most of the time I just sorta held on like this,
but at one point gordan dared me to hold on really tight.
I think she was rather shocked. :)
So anyway, it was really fun, we just rode around for about an hour and we asked them to stop occasionally so we could take some pictures. This portion of the forest was quite beautiful and peaceful- almost nobody else around.
It was somewhat charming that they made the "no smoking" signs match the actual gravestones.
Then they dropped us off at the actual tomb of Confucius. This part was much less nice. Huge tour groups with guides using megaphones and little kids crawling over sacred artifacts . . .
Although it did give us a chance to play one of our favorite games. When we were living here before we used to like to stand in the middle of a big crowd and see if the other person could pick us out.
It's a challenging game but usually my shoes or something would give it away.
Outside the forest was Dongxi (thing) Heaven. Gordon was right at home.

So then we headed back to a different part of town via one of these guys that was not napping
to go to the Kong Miao (Confucius Temple).
We were here at the perfect time of day. It was late in the afternoon and there was that magical light that makes everything and every body look beautiful.
This temple has been there for over 2000 years and is truly amazing. These columns were so fabulous that back in the day they had to be covered with red silk when the Emperor came so that he wouldn't feel that his own Forbidden City's Hall paled in comparison.
and I really loved these doors
So by evening it was almost time to leave Qufu.
We went back to our hotel to pick up our bags which were being kept for us in this mini room, which you got to from this mini door which even this 4 foot tall woman had to bend down to get through.
By the way, this is what our hotel was advertised as looking like
and this is what it did look like.
So then we were off to the bus station. Because there was apparently no space on any of the trains going to Beijing for the next day and a half, we had to take a bus to Ji'nan that night and then fly to Beijing the next morning. It was a little bit stressful because we wouldn't be getting in to Ji'nan until late, and the airport was far away from the bus stop, and our flight left at 6 in the morning, and we didn't know the area at all, and it was a really big city, and the station was of course filled with huairens (bad people), and we got there even later (11:30pm) because the buses do this weird thing where they pull out of the bus station at the time of departure and then wait around the corner for like 45 mins so they can make extra money on travelers not wanting to pay full price for a bus ticket, and I had to pee really bad, and all of these things made us succumb to a trip to KFC. It's just the only well-lit place with a bathroom and people I feel comfortable asking assistance of in this situation. So we bought some fries and felt very guilty,
but we were able to meet these incredibly great people who helped us out so much. Even though we couldn't stay at the hotel they were at b/c that place didn't accept foreigners, they helped us find another place and even helped us figure out how to get to the airport in the morning. I was very grateful for these two people! They didn't speak any English but were just so nice and patient in helping us for like an hour.
oh, i also learned something interesting about Gordon that I can't believe I never knew before. She can't just chew one piece of gum- she has to chew two at a time so that everything in her mouth is symmetrical.

Our hotel was gross! We could hear rats running around in the heater and walls all night and had to cover up these holes so that we could have at least some piece of mind about them coming out from there and onto our bed.
Then the bathroom floor was like a sponge. It gave about an inch or two when you walked on it and had a layer of stagnant water all over it- no drain in there even though there's a shower. . .
It did come with this great care package of all things vacuum-wrapped. The toilet seat, cover which you had to buy, even had how-to cartoons.
So then we got a few hours of very unrestful sleep but were still so happy that things all worked out.