Confucius Burial Mound, Qufu, Shandong, China

About an hour away by bus from the foot of Tai Shan is the birth and resting place of Confucius. The Confucius Temple was interesting as we discovered the place where Confucius himself professed his teachings and wisdom in the various courtyards filled with gnarly knotted pine trees. Other courtyards had a vast number of large upright slabs of stone (steles) with impressive ancient chinese texts engraved upon them. Then on to his family mansion where later generations became treated like royalty - The Kongs. Finally, we walked on to the Confucius Forest to visit his tomb - a 2000 year old burial mound amongst all his descendants (you can see the grass mound behind me in the picture). There are apparently over 200000 trees in the forest, all planted one each by his followers. Inspite of all the chinese tour groups it was surprisingly peaceful and we even managed an uninterrupted game of backgammon, while we waited for privacy at his resting place. *Mush