Somewhere in...Shandong

We have arrived to Shandong, an overnight journey by train which would have been very comfortable - the beds and carriage certainly were -had it not been for the fact that we shared our 4-bed carriage with a guy who must certainly rank amongst the world's loudest snorers. As we tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep through the constant, never-ending rumble, we remembered all the people we met who annoyed us in their sleep through their snoring, and issued a silent apology - their snores were nothing compared to this earth-trembling experience.

But our adventures continue in the strange land of China, with so many stories to tell that when we find ourselves in front of the computer the choice is just overwhelming and many tales remain to be told over the next months, over drinks, recalling the whole otherworldness of this country. Just the other day I was reminded of the sight which at first did not seem so strange, of the Chinese markets where fish is killed at the moment of being ordered by the customer, with the severed head still breathing and apparently seeing its own body being prepared for packing (hope you have not just had lunch as you are reading this! ). Strange thing is, when we first saw it happen, it just seemed like another very weird Chinese thing to do, and so "shelled" we are now, the bizarre just seems normal!

The other side of this "bizareness" is that there are just so many wonderful, beautiful, ancient buildings that one just thinks, "oh just another 2000 years old beautiful temple, so what?" - the world heritage places we have been visiting would be a world famous attraction had they been in some other more exposed country, and in Shandong province where we are now, halfway through Shanghai to Beijing, we have visited two towns where these world heritage places are dazzling. Qufu is the hometown of Confucius, a sage from 2500 years ago, and a huge complex of temples has been created over all this time to create a huge area of extremely old, beautiful buildings, the Confucius Temples and Mansions. Qufu itself was a breath of fresh air, a tiny village of only 90,000 people!

We are now in Tai'an, a bigger town with a gorgeous Dai Temple from 1000AD, another world heritage site, the gateway to pilgrims going up the nearby sacred Tai Shan mountain, which we did not get to climb (the high admission price of 13e was a contributing factor, as was the fog and the luxurious hotel room we are staying in!) And tomorrow we move on to the capital and final stop for this vast country, whose size we just managed to grasp, whose people and habits we are only now starting to comprehend. And we have just read that quite a few more world heritage sites await us in Beijing's neighborhood! How bizarre!