Sunday 7th Augiust

Today after breakfast we braved the showers. We were happy to be clean again. Then we set off by bus NO6 (stops right outside the gates of the school). We visited Confucious mansion which was beautifully restored. The downside was thousands of Chinese tourists, each group with their own guide and each guide with a loudspeaker. They were all competing to bee heard and the outcome was pandemonium. Nobody seemed to mind - Chinese have total disregard to noise pollution anyway, other than the only 2 foreigners - us! We the had a pit-stop at the youth hostel which is where most of students hang out when allowed out of our school. They have such luxuries as chips and club sandwiches and nice coffee. The chinese do not have a good relationship with cheese and so you cannot buy it anywhere in Qufu..we then hitched a ride on a horse drawn cart with a friendly family from Fujian on hols. We all went to the Confusian cemetery outside the city walls. Basically
an ancient thick canopied forest with pathways and scattered around large standing tombstones and animal statues. Pleasant 1hr+ walk but humidity and mosquitoes made us cut it short. We took a motorised pedalo taxi back to the hostel, driven by a toothless old lady who cheerily bypassed our destination and almost drove inside a restaurant (probably her son's) where she wanted us to have a meal! We declined and proceeded to the third ancient site - a 15th century temple and gardens. From the three this was my favorite - probably because we were almost the only ones there and was so tranquil.After our cultural overload we decided to support the waning domestic demand in China. Now seriously, despite the thousands of people in the streets most of the shops were empty and I donkt blame the buying public, the fashions are terrible, incomprehensible who the target market is. Although I have yet to see a nicely dressed person, I have seen several women dressed like colourblind hookers on speed. In every shop there 2-3 people for the job of 1, sometimes more. My negotiations to buy an antique vase with an export certofocate failed ( I blame Nelly at the school who instructed to offer 1/3 and close at 1/2) but was successful in buying couple of nice pieces of jade at a good jewelery store at half the price , which my jeweler in Athens will turn into earrings. We bought extra flip flops which were immediately needed as out of nowhere a tropical downpour ensued and our umbrellas only managed to keep dry the top of our heads. We jumped into waters knee high - streets have drainage problem, and caught No6 bus back to school where we had dinner at 6pm and another very early night - asleep by 9pm.