Category Archives: Crazy Euopean People

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Travels

Going around Helsinki

November 15, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 32 Comments

I just recently realized that I have no blog post about Helsinki and what you can visit there at all! I mean I got Xi’an covered, Stockholm, Tallinn and also several North German cities but nothing about Helsinki, the city I lived for so many years. Thankfully I did not forget yet everything so I will give you a small impression on what you can visit there within a day. All pictures were shot few days before our wedding going around the city with my in-laws and also few days after the wedding taking some friends around.

First of all some info about the city. Helsinki is the capital city of Finland with a population of about 625 thousand. That might seem pretty small but you have to think that the entire nation only got a bit over 5 million inhabitants so it ain’t that bad suddenly anymore. Finland has been for many years under the rule of Sweden and later under the rule of the Russian Empire. Only after 1917 Finland got its independency. It was under the Russian rule that Helsinki became the capital city of Finland and in the city center are many neoclassical buildings. In fact it happens often that tv shows or movies are using the city center of Helsinki not in order to have Helsinki itself as the setting but St. Petersburg! But more about that you shall see in some pictures.

One main thing to visit in the city is the Helsinki Cathedral. It has been built from 1830-1852 and was known until the Finnish independency as St. Nicholas Church (Grand Duke of Finland, Tsar Nicholas the First of Russia). it is not an incredible big cathedral but it has a very interesting design and interior decorations. Standing in front of the cathedral you have a wonderful view towards the Senate Square and can even see a bit of the South harbour. Passing by the Senate Square is the street Aleksanterinkatu which is a shopping street where you can find pretty much everything, there is also Stockmann located, a big department store. The street is also very interesting as it is heated during winter time and thus there is no snow. A short distance away is Temppeliaukio Church which is famous for its design. It was built 1969 into solid rock and is known due to this fact also as the Rock Church. Due to its design and the rock walls it has excellent acoustics and is often used for small performances.

From the Helsinki harbour you can take a ferry to Suomenlinna, an old sea fortress which is also a UNESCO World heritage site. The island is inhabited by some 900 people and all around are the old remains of the fortress including huge cannons. It is also a very popular place to go for Finnish people to enjoy the rare summer days to have some BBQ and go swimming in the ocean. At Suomenlinna is also the last surviving Finnish submarine Vesikko. From the Helsinki harbour you can take also another ferry to the Helsinki Zoo Korkeasaari. The ferry used to be the only means of getting there however these days there is also a bridge leading to the zoo (only by walking though!). It is a small but nice zoo with animals from around the world. There is also an Africa and a South America House with small animals running partly freely around there.

All these places you can pretty much visit within a day. Of course there are also many other places you should visit as well. The best way to get a good look around is to take one of the sightseeing buses or taking Tram Line 2 and 3 as they go pretty much around all major sightseeing spots. As you might have seen I did not include much of the city center here such as the museums, the famous Railway Station, the city hall or the Parliament House. These are all places you can easily visit by walking around the city center as they are just minutes away from each other by walking. To my shame I must admit I do not have any pictures of them and thus didn’t include them now in this short tour.

Have you visited Helsinki already or plan to go there one day?

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

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Our cute son

Differences between living in Germany and Finland

October 11, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 43 Comments

I think the title is pretty much self-explanatory. Today I will touch this topic as we live now already for more than a year in Germany after living for nearly eight years in Finland. The years in Finland were surely exciting and we had no urge to move anywhere to soon however few months before Nathan was born we made from one day to another the decision to move to Germany. Then in 2014 our son was born, shortly after that we got our apartment in my old hometown and planned the whole moving process which took the whole summer. More about what happened in 2014 can be found in this summary I wrote in the end of last year. All the things which will be listed here are from our own experiences and can (and will!) vary as it always depends on the person plus the area where you live in/ surroundings.

strawberryfam — MIL eating freshly picked strawberries in Finland

The first thing which comes to my mind is the nature. Finland got an amazing nature even in the cities. You got those huge forests, thousands of lakes, the Baltic sea, part of the country is even within the Arctic Circle and so clean air. Sure, Germany also got many beautiful things to offer but all in all it just can’t keep up with Finland when you are used to wild forests just behind your building while as in Germany you got to travel some longer distances to enjoy some real nature. Just thinking about my parents cottage in Finland makes me want to book a ticket and fly asap there though on second thought I might postpone that to next summer to enjoy the never setting sun and some warmer temperatures than now. So which country do we prefer when it comes nature? Finland of course!

Nummijarvi15 — Everyday view from our cottage…

The next point on this list is a very important one, the living costs! While living in Finland all those years we surely felt that live wasn’t cheap there but we never realized just how expensive everything is until we moved to Germany and needed to do our first grocery shopping. Just unbelievable, in average everything was suddenly only half price than what we were used to in Finland and some little things such as garlic, ginger etc up to only 1/10 of the Finnish prices. Through this we are already able to spend half the money per months than what we had to in Finland! You might think that in Finland you must earn more in order to sustain higher prices but the average income is only slightly higher than in Germany (speaking out of our own experiences and what we heard from friends). Germany is the clear winner when thinking about living costs and any other costs such as for clothes, anything you wish to buy or just going out to eat!

WP_20140927_015 — Outlet Center here in my hometown, so low prices compared to Finland!

The food…food is really something which can’t be really labeled as good or bad as it clearly depends on the person. In our case it depends entirely on me as my wife doesn’t like Finnish nor German food. In my opinion Germany got the better food and much more variety than Finland. As I said, it depends on the person and I grew up in Germany so all my thoughts about this topic are biased and thus useless for this list. I can’t even think about too many Finnish dishes except of some of the standards in Finland such as Karelian Pasty and some rye bread which I really enjoyed . However what I certainly loved in Finland are the sweets / the love for black liquorice candy and even food and drinks with wood tar flavor! In Germany there is just too much to choose from and I don’t even know where to start as each region or even town has their special dishes so in the end I just say Germany is the winner though I know there will be now an outcry from every Finnish person in the world (thankfully not too many Finnish people out there).

German food, greasy and heavy just like I love it

The mentality of the people is something really interesting. Most people from around the world have the general idea that Germans are very cold people and don’t show much emotions. Well…don’t go to Finland then as you might think the people are emotionally dead. Sometime ago there was a great satirical blog post on the Helsingin Sanomat (the national newspaper in Finland) about Finnish men called “Tis is Finland Män”. Of course everything exaggerated in that article but in its core it is a perfect description about the people in Finland and their mentality. Here in Germany we met some people who lived all their life in other countries such as China and USA. So when they told us about what they think about German people and how unfriendly they all are we were just shocked. For us it felt like we were suddenly surrounded by friendly open-minded people who all seem to care about you unlike in Finland where the general view is “Not shou emousshiöns.” Even my crazy Chinese mother-in-law who doesn’t speak any Finnish or German said after short time in Germany that the people here are so much more friendly than in Finland, not a good sign Finland!

These are just the main points I like to compare as I don’t want to go into politics or similar topics as they are for many dead boring or not interesting for us/ me. In general I can say that we prefer living in Germany right now but who knows, it might change in some years again. There is only one point both countries have in common and fail miserable at: Keeping MIL out!

Mother in law in Stockholm with Royal Guard — Not even the Swedish Royal Guard was enough to keep MIL out of Sweden!

Have you lived in different countries and did also such evaluation on what country you prefer the most?

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Germans, Our cute son

Duck Race Neumünster

September 27, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 21 Comments

Today was the annual duck race in my hometown. As you might have read in many other blog posts is the fact that here in my hometown is barely anything to do with the exception of a few events a year. One might say that they roll up the sidewalks here in the afternoon. This means that having such event is pretty much one of the main activities for the people here. Besides this sunday was also a “Sunday Shopping Day” as normally shops are closed on Sundays. This year marked also the 12th anniversary of this event here and was celebrated with tons of activities for children.

ente11 — Shortly after the start of the event

So what is this duck race? Basically it is a “race” of rubberducks down the pond and stream here in this town. Duck Races can be found all over the world but thus far I have only visited this one here. Any person can purchase a duck for a few Euros and gets a number for the duck. By buying one of this ducks you can participate in this race and have the chance to win some nice things such as a 2000€ travel voucher, a new TV etc. The avail of this event is later on donated to some charity programs.

The race starts by pouring all the ducks from a container which is lifted by a crane into the pond. The pond and the little river have a little race track/ plastic barriers so that the ducks follow a specific route till they arrive at a bridge few hundred meters away. Depending on the weather the whole competition might take 20 minutes or even several hours! This year we missed the start of the race as little Nathan took his sweet time waking up from his nap so we arrived few minutes too late. But we were still early enough to see the beginning of the race when all the ducks were massed up before slowly spreading all over the race track.

ente3 — Ducks racing towards the finish line

The pond and the river are at a little park located in the center of Neumünster and everywhere some attractions were offered for kids. Especially the radio controlled helicopters and ships interested many fathers as well (me included)! Somehow I feel like purchasing an own radio controlled helicopter now myself to harass some of the annoying neighbours but I guess that would be a bad idea…

It is too bad that Nathan is still too young to fully understand everything around him and enjoy some of the attraction for the children such as the jumping castle, some little animals from the zoo or the before mentioned radio controlled vehicles. Anyways this event seems to be going strong and I have no doubt it will still be held once Nathan is old enough.