Category Archives: Crazy Euopean People

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Germans, Travels

What my father saw in China

November 26, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 10 Comments

Back in 2016 we had a holiday in China and we had invited my father to join us. What I remember most from that trip is the incredible and annoying City Tour Extreme. As there was just so much to write about I split the adventure into four parts: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4. Besides that city tour we experienced the standard MIL madness/ the whole crazy family. Why am I writing about it now? Today I went through my dad’s camera and found the pictures he took last year. Okay that is until the battery was empty on Day 2 of the city tour and he had forgotten to take the proper charging cable with him.

My father has a different viewpoint when it comes to taking pictures. First of all he is still used to the time before digital cameras swarmed the market so he barely takes more pictures than would fit on an old film (max 36 pictures depending on the film). Secondly he is not wasting as much times as me on taking pictures as he is not aiming for the perfect shot but to have just some “memory” of the trip. Besides those two points he did not take any pictures in Xi’an except from the city wall and from some temple. I think this is because he has been everywhere before back in 2011 so he did not deem those other places worthy of using any space on his SD-Card again in 2016.

The “Old Old city Wall” within/ under the “Old City Wall” in Xi’an

On our city tour extreme I am not sure who was more annoyed by all the misplanning. I mean I was really annoyed but my dad was really really annoyed, especially when our tour guide “The Howling Monkey” did not even let us sleep in the bus after waking up each morning way too early. He even took a picture of the tour guide in order to never forget that person again. He also got rather annoyed by MIL’s behaviour as it was first time he really witnessed all her crazy doings over the span of three weeks. In fact he is right now thinking how he can survive her again next year when we go to China as we will take my father with us once again!

The Howling Monkey in pink, one of my father’s Archenemies

What is really surprising me is that my father actually has still the energy to do such trips with us as he just turned 76 this year. Especially those long flights are hard on him besides trying each day new unknown food in China. Despite having sometimes really many problems in China back in 2016 he still agreed to come with us instantly after we asked him to join us. My mother on the other hand had the same reply as last time “No way I will ever go there again!”.

An ocean of flowers at the Slender West Lake in Yangzhou

Going through the pictures I wondered sometimes on how different they were compared to the ones I took. Sure I took a lot more than him but some places I did not recognize at all or had forgotten as I never captured them with my camera. At times it is really interesting to see how two people can have so very different pictures when visiting the same places. Next time I will make sure that he has his charging cable and I will try to motivate him to take more pictures.

View from the city wall towards the Bell Tower

Nathan running up the stairs (with some help..)

Nanjing Fuzimiao (god I hated that place)

Have you ever checked pictures of another person (friend, spouse, family member) after you went on the same trip somewhere?

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Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law

Fun at the family themepark Tolk-Schau

July 23, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 14 Comments

Last week I mentioned already that we would visit a theme park soon. That visit actually happened just few days after writing that blog post. We had one of those rare sunny days here in North Germany and instead of visiting Lübeck we settled on going to the theme park. It was a wonderful day though it started not so well and ended very sad but more about that later.

Slides connecting different parts of the park

Right in the morning we had a doctor appointment for Nathalie for one of the first check-ups. Usually I would have gone with them as well but one of our bunnies was not feeling so well so I went with her to the veterinarian. After getting home I gave the bunnies fresh food and water and left to pick up the rest of the family from the doctor. Due to the veterinarian visit we were running already a bit late so we arrived in Tolk-Schau shortly before 1pm.

The park was full considering that the summer holidays hadn’t started yet in our province at that time. Nathan was so excited when he saw all the amusement rides. The theme park is family oriented and kids his age can go to nearly all rides as there are no “extreme” ones such as big rollercoasters. There were only a few which he couldn’t go to as they were age 7+. The kids can go to simple small slides, big carpet slides, take a small train around the park area, a family rollercoaster, trampoline areas, information areas regarding dinosaurs and much more. Needless to say that MIL could be found in many amusement rides as well, most of the time not standing in line and just entering the ride while kids were waiting for their turn…

In case you get hungry you can have a quick meal in the park, nothing fancy but good enough and cheap. The theme park does not have a proper restaurant because of one simple reason: you can rent BBQ huts! We did not rent ourselves one this time but we will do so for the next visit. I must say you get very hungry when going around the park and smell some delicious BBQ from different huts. When I was younger and went there with some friends they often rent those huts. Not only can you prepare yourself food there but it is a perfect place to have a “base” to return to and store all the things you don’t want to carry around whole day.

All in all Tolk-Schau is perfect for kids till the age of 12. I myself enjoyed the park a lot in my youth till I was 14. Here is a little video I found the park on youtube. It was a great day for us there and even my wife tried some of the amusement rides however she was even scared of the small family rollercoaster. This is a bit surprising as back in the day when we just started dating we went to a theme park in Helsinki and tried out all the rollercoasters there! In the end of the day Nathan was so tired that he fell asleep immediately after getting to the car. The day would have been wonderful except that it ended in a very sad way. When we got home my wife found our poor bunny dead in the cage. At least that little animal didn’t have to suffer too much in the end as she got at the veterinarian an injection against the pain. Now we have only one bunny and she is very passive these days, not entering the area of the cage at all where her sister had died.

Have you been to a “family” theme park before?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time

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Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Crazy Germans

The Annual Airport Festival

October 30, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 20 Comments

In the beginning of September (so half a century ago according to my blogging schedule) we went to the annual airport festival here in my hometown. Yes my little town has an airport, okay it might be more a very small airfield and not so much of an airport. Only small aircrafts can start and land there so there is no issue of noise complaints ever. I was actually checking out just now what kind of airfield it is but the Germans surely got their own laws and regulations which do not even translate into English so I won’t bother you with that! This airfield was a military airport back in WWII and after the war the airport was reduced in size to give way for a new city district which was built for the thousands of refugees arriving here such as my dad back in the day.

Enough of the history and categorization of this so-called airport and let’s get back to the festival. Though I have lived rather long here already before moving to Finland I had never visited this festival. I do not even know for how long this festival exists already except that it must be going on now for at least 8 years. I know that because back then my parents visited the festival as they have a friend, who is flying a glider, invited them. As this festival was right between the time MIL had left us to return to China and my parents return from their 4 month-long holiday we took this opportunity for some family time. From our home it is only 10 minutes by bicycle to the airport which made it very convenient for us to go there on both festival days. As you can imagine it was a very confusing but also exciting event for a 2 1/2-year-old boy! When he saw the first helicopter flying over our heads he went crazy, not as in crazy as everyday MIL, but happily crazy.

flug5 — One of the bit older gliders at the festival

On one side of the airfield were several food stalls and the tents of the different companies offering flights in either helicopters, gliders, gyrocopter, historical planes or different light aircrafts. You could also sign up for some parachute jumping but that is not really my thing as I might have some little fear of heights. Most surprisingly for us was that two of our friends were also at the festival and were just preparing for their parachute jump! I bet that the girl would have not jumped if she would have known back then that she was already in her first month of pregnancy. They also provided tons of entertainment for kids with several amusement rides, jumping castles and also a little track for quad driving (small quads with not so much power). In retrospect the quad driving was probably more intended to give the dads some fun while pretending to take care of their kids sitting in front of them.

flug3 — #Nathancuty loves to drive the Suzuki

The whole festival was very interesting as you could see all kind of different planes and other flying vehicles. They also had the Antonow AN-2 flying around which is the biggest operational single-engine biplane. We had plans to take a little tour with a light aircraft but the waiting list was a bit too much for us with its 2-3 hours of waiting time. So in order to let Nathan enjoy his time there we let him have some rounds in the amusement rides. We had the before-mentioned quad ride for him but he clearly did not really care about as he kind of looked depressed in the pictures.

For us it was a nice experience to go to this airport festival. We learned a few things about the different planes, Nathan had lots of fun, it is nearby and best of all the entrance is for free. Next year we will definitely go again and then we will sign up early enough for a flight in one of the planes!