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Crazy Family, Our cute daughter, Our cute son, Travels

Beautiful Osaka

June 24, 2018 CrazyChineseFamily 19 Comments

Now we come to our last part of the Japan trip. After a lot of fun in Tokyo and visiting Thomas Land it was time to travel to Osaka. We took the Shinkansen in the late afternoon so we arrived in Osaka in the early evening. Here we had once again an Airbnb house rented and it was just a walking distance away from the Namba station and thus very close to the city center. As we arrived so late we only picked up some food from a convenience store and went to sleep.

For the following day we met up with the amazing Marina who showed us Sumiyoshi Taisha which is a beautiful old Temple area, Shinsekai and of course Dotonbori. It was great that Marina had time for us as she could give useful advice what else to visit and of course where and what to eat! On that day the weather decided to go crazy as the day started with way too much sun and once we were done with our Lunch (Okonomiyaki in a nice restaurant in Dotonbori) the sky was heavy with grey clouds and it started to rain. In fact it would continue to rain for the next days till our departure!

The rain was also the reason why we visited much fewer places than intended. Sure we manage it in that terrible weather to the Osaka Castle (where we found nearby a wonderful little Curry Restaurant, will never forget it) but that is about it. Our plans for Kobe and Kyoto we had to abandon as it would have been insane to go there in such bad weather conditions with two little kids. So we stayed those last days in Osaka and tried to make the best out of it. We revisited Dotonbori and Shinsekai a few times, took a ride in the Don Quixote Ferris Wheel, ate a lot, visited few other temples, got lost in the Shinsaibashi shopping streets and in between went back to the house to somehow dry all our clothes.

Even though the weather ruined a lot of our plans for Osaka and visiting the neighbouring cities we still loved it there. Sure the rain wasn’t all that great but we had a wonderful time there. Osaka felt much more “homely” compared to Tokyo and we certainly liked it. When we come back to Japan I definitely want to revisited Osaka and enjoy some more Okonomiyaki and eat few Takoyaki while looking upon the Glico Man!

Felt much safer with German Police around

Just how long are these shopping streets??

Found another temple when visiting Shinsaibashi

Has bad weather ruined your holiday plans before?

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Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Our cute son, Travels

Nathancuty at Thomas Land

June 17, 2018 CrazyChineseFamily 17 Comments

And another article about our trip in Japan. We had only seven days in that wonderful country and way too much to see. As mentioned in the previous blog post Epic Tokyo we had a trip planned to Thomas Land. Ever since Nathan heard about Thomas Land in February he asked us all the time when we would go there. Little did he know how far that theme park is from our home and was getting more and more excited each day. So when the big day arrived he was so happy and jumping around non-stop. Once again my wife’s cousin joined us to help out and of course play with Nathan.

We left shortly after breakfast from our Airbnb house to Shinjuku station which was just 20min away by foot. From there we took a train to Otsuki Station where something very special would take us further to Fuji-Q Highland. Nathan had no idea that we would board a special Thomas Themed train to get to the park. In that train you could take pictures with different “Trains” and the kids could pretend to be driving the train itself. Our little boy was busy the entire journey to the park “steering” the train. Meanwhile MIL was complaining as usual about the aircondition and was the only person in the entire train wearing even a jacket.

Once we arrived we got us something to eat at one of the restaurants at the Fuji-Q Highland park. The food was okay but not worth mentioning any further unlike all the other restaurants we visited during the Japan holidays. Thomas Land is just one little part of the entire Highland Park and it was so full there. Yes, it is very smart to go anywhere in Japan during the Golden Week and we will never do that again! Each ride had a waiting time of at least one hour and we decided plit up to go to different waiting lines so that Nathan could go at least on a few rides before the closing time of the park. He had tons of fun and also got some little Thomas souvenirs from the Gift Shop. In fact the gift shop was a bit too much for him as there were so many Thomas toys, shirts, cups and so forth.

After few hours in the park it was time for us to head back to Tokyo. for our last night there. We had some wonderful food again together with the cousin and her future husband and made plans for the next day. For the last day in Tokyo we headed to Odaiba for some last sightseeing. It was kind of interesting to be on a fully automated train to Odaiba. Here in Germany people distrust already automatic doors and in Japan you have trains running without any staff! Of course there had to be an October Fest in Odaiba making the whole area even more crazy with people. Our time in Tokyo was really wonderful and worth every Cent (very many cents…). The time just went by too fast and we did not really feel like leaving Tokyo already but we had other big plans for the following day as Osaka was next on our list!

Cousin and her future husband taking Nathan away

Have you visited special Theme Parks such as Thomas Land?

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First Days in China

June 3, 2018 CrazyChineseFamily 23 Comments

It has been a rather long time since my last blog post and yeah, I’ve been really lazy it seems! But fear no longer as I am back now with some spare time on my hands just for this blog. The main reason for my hiatus was actually our holiday in China which lasted nearly a month and also few exhausting weeks battling with taxations once again. Right now we even have the joy of surviving dear Chinese mother-in-law as she arrived yesterday.

This first blog post after such long break will be rather uneventful as it will be just about the first days in China during our holidays there. Unbelievable but true this trip has been our first real holidays in nearly two years! I guess you can imagine how exhausted you can get with work without any holidays for such long time so we were very excited. However as we are running our own business work did not stop with us going to holidays and thus we had few working days even in China.

So what you do after such long time without holidays once you arrive in Xi’an? Go eat! The first few days we went to each one of our favorite restaurants, it just felt so good to be able to eat those wonderful dishes again. Well, we loved it but my father was not that fond about Liangpi 凉皮 (cold noodles) and few other dishes we devoured. However we usually found a good compromise and he got something he liked each day, in fact he stated later that this holiday to China was the best of them all as he really liked the food during the entire trip. Besides eating we went for many walks around the neighbourhood and I could not help myself to take few more pictures of the area and building where my in-laws live. My father feels always reminded how Germany looked like after WWII when going through that area in the city center of Xi’an. It appears that standard maintenance is unheard of in parts of China.

Just to the left there you shall find the entrance to my in-laws building

The first week in China was more like getting used to having holidays again and doing few sightseeing tours around the city. Even though we had started there our holidays it did not really feel real. Xi’an had changed once again a lot in just two years and just had a different “vibe” compared to before. My father liked this new feeling to the city especially as car drivers suddenly stop for pedestrians (scooter riders will still try to kill you) and that everything is much cleaner now as there are hundreds of people going around each day collecting trash in the city center with a bucket and pick-up tools.