China Shandong
 

Hi All,

I am travelling to China the end of the month and will be there for 2 weeks. My plan is:

2 nights Shanghai
Fly to Qingdao
Stay 3 nights in Qingdao
This part i need help with....
(Choice 1 night Qufu, 2 nights Jinan or 3 nights Jinan)

I am undecided to weather to get a train to Qufu for the night and do Confucious temple etc or to get a train straight to Jinan stay for 3 nights and use this as my base to do day trips from to Qufu and Zhujiayu ?

Any suggestions would be great ??
Also anyone with experience travelling by train would be great to hear regarding how easy this is ?
I have 5days in Beijing after this.

Thanks in advance :)

I didn't visit Qingdao or Jinan, and so am not sure how helpful I can be, but I can say that I thought Qufu interesting and was glad I spent a day / night there. You can see what I had to say about my time there by reading my trip report -- click on my name to find the report, and then use the search feature to find the section on Qufu.

I found traveling by trains very easy in China. As noted in my TR, I rode both local and express trains. I believe it is much easier to get tickets than when I was there (2010).

That's great kja I will have a read of your TR. Can I also ask a rough guide of a daily budget ? All accomdation, transport and tours are paid for. So it will be just spending money for food ??

As a rule, I found food extremely affordable, but I'm afraid it's been too long for me to say with confidence what it cost. My recollection is that outside of Beijing, I generally had two dishes (one meat, one vegetable -- WAY more food than I needed) and a beer or two with each dinner (I don't each lunch), and my recollection is that I generally paid less than 30 yuan, but I could be misrecalling and things could easily have changed since I was there (2010). You should be able to get an idea from a good guidebook....

That's great thanks kja for your advice.

All China train schedules, prices, etc here:

http://www.cnvol.com/

More difficult now to get tix coz must show passport to buy. Locals have trouble too.