Category Archives: Dad in Law

Crazy Family, Dad in Law, Mom in Law, Travels

Travel plans for this year

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Our trip to China is getting closer and with it also the (probably) the last time to see Granny. As I mentioned in the last post she is not doing fine. Back then the doctors couldn’t pinpoint what is exactly going on but by now they figured it out. She has malignant melanoma what they already suspected one month ago. However they could not find the spot untill few weeks later as it is actually located in her upper throat. Because she never really goes to the dentist they never saw it growing there and by now it is just too late.

Granny surrounded my her family at our wedding in China 2013

This cancer won’t be treated except with some Chinese medications as she is too weak for any surgery (and this surgery would be very risky as well) and chemotherapy would not help in this case either. She does not know that she is seriously ill and the doctors and the family decided to keep it that way. In the best possible scenario she still has a few years to live and we hope for that one though I hate to imagine how the last months of her life will be.

Because of this turn of events we “rescheduled” our plans for this trip to China and will stay mostly in Xi’an. Our planned short holiday to Thailand has been postponed to some other year. However this does not mean that we won’t travel at all this year at least within China. In the end of April we will be going for a few days to Wuhan to  meet up with some friends from Finland. No they are not Finnish but they are in fact Chinese who studied together with my wife back in Kajaani over 12 years ago and lived in the same dormitory. Last year they visited us in Xi’an and this year we shall visit them in their city. Besides Wuhan we will be going in May to Hong Kong! Now this is a city I wanted to visit for so many years but my wife never really had any interest in it. However now I convinced her finally though I must say that mentioning Disney Land might have helped a bit here.

Standard Chinese apartment block, let’s see how they look in Wuhan and Hong Kong

My wife does not even have the chance to change her mind on these travels as all tickets have been booked already so she won’t be able to turn into a complete coach potato this time around. Oh and also our plans for the summer changed again. My wonderful Chinese mother-in-law will be coming to Germany. We had first planned for FIL to come as ´his wife prefered staying with her mother in China but because doctors think that Granny still has way more than just few months or even several years my wife could convince her. Another big reason to convince MIL to come to Germany was about work. FIL is always handling the packages we send to China such as opening them, checking the items and repacking them to smaller boxes to send to the customer. Every time MIL did this job it was a total disaster as products would just go missing or she would forget to send them/ send them to the wrong customer. Her doing that job for 3 months would be the possible end of our company. Thus MIL will be coming to Germany in order to help us with the kids while my parents are in Finland for the entire summer.

Have you been to Hong Kong or Wuhan?

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 there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

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

New Apartment Part II

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Remember when I wrote about the apartment my in-laws had in mind? Back then they were not 100% whether to buy it or not. They did not even know if they move into the apartment  or rent it out in case they buy it. Shortly after that blog post my in-laws decided to buy it and keep it for a few years before selling it for some profit. Everything seemed so fine back then as I was happy that they wouldn’t move out of their old apartment. Well my in-laws are apparently changing their minds very often. Because they could not decide on a certain move I did not give any further updates as I hoped, nay prayed that they would change their mind again.

As the situation is right now (actually ever since the beginning of December) is that they buy the new apartment and move in! This is like the worst case scenario, it just can’t get any worse than that. I have no clue at all how on earth they got the idea to actually move to the new apartment. Not only is it on a very bad floor (nearly the top thus the water pressure is miserable) and the location is terrible as well. You might think that the area will be developed soon as so much is being build there right now but you are wrong. Sure it used to be an industrial area for half century but the factory workers actually lived right there. It is full of old apartment blocks from the 1950s-60s and never any supermarket or similar has opened there. According to the city planning there is nothing at all in the books for the near future so my dear parents in-law will have to take the bus for every little thing they need.

He ain’t happy with his grandparents as well

The only good thing right now is that they have decided to move into the new apartment towards the end of the year. Thus our trip to China in April/ May is saved and we do not need any terrible bus rides just to buy some snacks. I do not kid you the busses (at least in Xi’an) are terrible. They are always stuck in traffic, they are filled to the brim with people, they would definitely not pass any safety inspections in Germany (for what could you possibly need breaks or or mirrors?) and they are like a bad-smelling sauna during summer time. Yes there are also busses with air-condition but they are very rare and I do not really like to wait half hour for a certain bus in the terrible heat when the other scary ones are stopping every 5 minutes.

I guess my in-laws expect from me and my dad such miracle work as in our apartment few years back

My dear parents in-law now want that we (my father and I) will go with them to check for the materials to use for the new apartment and make some basic plans. Sounds like tons of fun to do during your holidays. The best is that both MIL and FIL have completely different opinions and “taste” when it comes to refurbishing that place. While MIL has some crazy Italian materials and furniture all planned out good old FIL wants to keep everything more subtle with dark and light coloured contrasts (dark floor and cream coloured walls for example). I really do not know what I will do this holiday in China, enjoy my time there with great food or renovate an apartment I hate?

Do you know people who change their mind all the time?

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 there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

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Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Dad in Law, Mom in Law

The Love for Food

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There are many reasons why I love to travel to China as I have already written once down in this post from last year. There I briefly mentioned food and my favorite restaurants. By going through my pictures from the past years I realized that the food part fell a bit short in that post so I decided to make up for it now. I know that I might bring the wrath of some people now upon me by sharing those pictures but I just can’t help it.

food7
Nom nom nom

Chinese consider their food to be the crème de la crème of all the world and to be honest I mostly agree with that. Mostly? Because there is always some other food which is great as well (but not in the eyes of my wife and her family…prefering to eat in some run down Chinese restaurant in Germany rather than trying some local specialities, but that is again another story). I only need to mention 小五 xiao wu/ little five in front of my wife to receive death stares from her as xiao wu is the name of our favorite little restaurant in China just 2 minutes walking distance away from her parents home. Let me just tell you that it is surely one of the best foods I have ever tried and also far far away from our current location in Germany hence the death stares. Xi’an, as any other city in China, has tons of food to offer.

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More nom nom nom

Let’s take biangbiang Biang (简体).svgBiang (简体).svg noodles as an example. Not only do they have the supposedly most complicated character but they do also taste superb. Then there are various cold noodle dishes liangpi 凉皮 of which I sometimes even dream of and then of course rou jia mo 肉夹馍 the mouth-watering “meat bread” you can find at so many places around the city. Whenever my in-laws are taking us to a new restaurant I am all hyped, not only because it surely will lead to another weird story due to MIL’s unreasonable character but also because I can experience new food once again. Of course I sometimes face food which I am not the biggest fan of right after the first bite but usually it is something amazing again.

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Have I mentioned nom nom nom already?

One risk though when it comes to going out to eat with my in-laws is that I might end up with way too much food. They know that I love noodle dishes, particularly cold noodle dishes and also rou jia mo. Sounds great at first but when you do suddenly get two rou jia mo, one cold noodle dish and then some other dish it is a bit much for me. This certain flood of food I received when going to a restaurant in the city center famous for these foods. Well, I managed to eat it all but didn’t feel all too well afterwards for the rest of the day. Speaking of over eating. It is so dangerous with dear crazy mother-in-law as she piles up food non-stop on my plate and thus I learned to wait and see where she is sitting so I can find the seat farthest away from her. The thing is, even though my in-laws always order way too much it is never enough in the end. FIL can eat much, way to much for a guy his size. To put it in other words: he eats about triple the amount of food than me which equals pretty much half his body weight in my estimations. I better come now to the rest of the pictures before I start some more rants about my crazy Chinese family.

Do you have places you love to visit due to the food?

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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