Confucius said, "My temple's dull but my home town's a good laugh"

Next stop on our surge towards the east coast was Qufu, home of China's great philosopher Confucius. I won't go into any guidebook-style potted history this time - I'll just say that Qufu summed up China and almost our whole trip quite succinctly. We spent a couple of slightly bored hours doing the obligatory tourist thing, looking at the temple erected in Confucius's honour, but apart from that we mooched around, eating and drinking too much at the little street market, not doing much else, and having a great time doing it.

Inactivity at Confucius's temple


Friendly man selling some sort of meat at the street market. I know that second character, that looks a bit like a rib cage, means meat - I wonder what the first character means


Hm, suspected as much - it means dog


We think these little chaps got their revenge over the next couple of days


We got chatting (in the loosest sense of the word) to a group of people from Harbin, right up in the northeast near Russia. The last gang that accosted us and forced drinks down our neck were from Harbin too - must be a fun place.


This is after several shouts of "GAMBEI!", which means cheers, or more literally, dry your glass.


Another gambei moment


The aftermath. This picture could also have been taken inside my head