Category Archives: Mom in Law

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

Discovering the Hanseatic City of Lübeck

July 12, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 29 Comments

My Chinese mother-in-law is gone now, she just left a few hours ago from Hamburg Airport and life goes on its normal path once again. This week was pretty busy as we had some little sightseeing tours in different cities around here which started with Kiel last week. The next stop on our sightseeing list was Lübeck, another port city in this state and roughly 45 min driving distance away from my hometown. I have been there before only for swimming competitions and once long time ago during a school trip and thus I had to check myself what to visit before going there.

Lübeck16 — Nice cafes are all over the place

Lübeck or the Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second largest city in the state of Schleswig-Holstein and has around 200.000 inhabitants. It got its Hanseatic title back in the day and was known as the “Queen of the Hanseatic League” during the 14th century. Even though the city suffered also a lot during the air raids during the second World War there is still very much of the historic center left. Lübeck is also home to Niederegger. I know, many people outside of Europe are not the biggest fans of Marzipan and especially Asians have a dislike for it however for most people here it is just wonderful.

Lübeck1 — Lübeck recreated with Marzipan!

Enough of all the background info and lets start with our little trip around the city. We had luck with the weather as it wasn’t so hot anymore as the previous days and a little breeze from the ocean kept the air nicely fresh. After some confusing ride through the city (thanks to the GPS device slowly failing me…) we arrived at a parking garage and we could start our sightseeing tour. Okay, we actually headed straight to the restaurant I had picked out as it was already past noon and our stomachs were growling. Our destination was the restaurant “Kartoffer Keller” (Potato Celler) which had a variety of different dishes made out of, guess what, potatoes! The restaurant itself is located in the historic vault of the old Heiligen-Geist-Hospital (somehting like Holy-Spirit-Hospital). It looked pretty impressive in my opinion especially as I havent been before in a restaurant located in a vault. I have only read about them such as Leipzig’s Auerbachs Keller featured on Henry Lee’s blog Fotoeins. I surely enjoyed my meal which was of course with potatoes (grilled potatoes) with egg, some unknown vegetables (all vegetables are unknown to me, I just call them the green stuff) and a steak, more than enough for me. The women however are not really fond of German food so they did not enjoy it so much. Nathan was a real hero and after he finished his own baby food he helped to empty his mother’s plate, he surely does love German food!

After this was survived we started our sightseeing tour/ shopping tour. Sightseeing in a way that we went through the historic city center and took some nice pictures and shopping as the entire city center is filled with stores those two women just had to visit. This gave me the chance to go around on my own with the camera. Lübeck certainly offers a lot of opportunities to take pictures however I faced the dilemma of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of photo opportunities that I gave up after a while and headed back in search of my family. Somehow this short shopping time was enough for them and they were ready to head back home but I decided to have a stop at St. Mary’s Church. This I did as MIL is a very religious person so I thought it might be interesting to take a look inside. However once we were inside and MIL realized that the entry fee was 2 Euros she didn’t want to go inside anymore. The entrance fee is basically there to finance the restauration work as this church got some years on its back and needs constant fixing as any other old building does but MIL did not really comprehend this and was asking my wife non-stop why there would be an entrance fee for a church…

Though the day seemed pretty short in Lübeck we did in fact spent nearly half day there and the only reason to head back home was because Nathan’s dinner time was approaching. I certainly hope to go to Lübeck with my wife again in the near future as there is still so much I want to discover in the historical city center. One thing became clear during this trip: No more German food for the two women!

The “Holy-Spirit-Hospital” being restaurated

This pictures shows just how massive some of the churches are

What do you think about entrance fees in historical buildings such as churches and what is your opinion about German 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.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Our cute son

Three months living with Mother-in-law Part II

July 8, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 31 Comments

It is once again time to say farewell to my Chinese mother-in-law. This sunday she will head back to China and thus her three-month reign of terror will come to an end. It has been her second time to stay with us for three months and it makes me wonder what is the difference between those two visits.

First of all I have to mention what did not really change at all when comparing both three months visits. There is still the need for her to go shopping but then again she is just addicted to it. She is perfectly fine to be left alone in the Outlet Center for several hours or dropped of in some shopping district in a random city. Then there is the thing about taking pictures which only slightly changed. She surely still takes pictures and videos of nearly everything she sees but especially of Nathan. Every single day she wants us to take pictures of her together with Nathan. She is so camera focused that whenever she sees a camera just slightly pointing in her direction she starts posing, I am not joking. For example when we were in the submarine there were some guys from India taking pictures. So when they wanted to record the machines which were standing behind MIL she immediately started posing and putting on that “fake camera smile”.

So now to the things which have changed since the last time. She got better in cooking! Okay still there were times when she refused to put in any salt because it is too unhealthy but minutes later she would stuff herself with a litre of ice cream. But overall she indeed improved and these days I really love many of her noodle dishes which we have at least every second day. I think few of those noodle dishes I will miss till we go to Xi’an in August, something I would have not expected to ever happen with MIL’s cooking.

There are also few new things which pop into my mind when reflecting about the past month. She really seems not willing to learn anything new/ get rid of bad habits. I think I don’t need to mention the lovely kitchen rag anymore but she still cleans really everything with it (I did secretly change the rag multiple times though). But there is another thing. Each evening when we try to get Nathan to sleep we take him first to our bed, play with him shortly and let him slip into his dreams. Each and every single day MIL came into our bedroom checking on Nathan when he is just falling asleep resulting that he wakes up again and being very very grumpy. To this day there has been no exception to this and she truly believes that he starts crying because he wants to be held by her…it does not even cross her mind that she is the cause of him getting so upset every night.

All in all I can say that the three months passed by quickly, actually too quickly as she was a big help when it comes to take care of Nathan and preparing all the food. My wife has less time these days due to her business and I am just trying to help out whenever I am able somehow. Did you notice that I didn’t show any pictures of the apartment/ kitchen? Well, it looks like a hell here and I do not even dare to check out the kitchen myself.

How would you survive in case your mother-in-law stays with you for three months?

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.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

Crazy Chinese People, Mom in Law, Our cute son

Trip to Kiel and its surroundings

July 5, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 31 Comments

My Chinese mother-in-law is leaving soon back to China and this means we have to visit even more places than before. Even though we got around here in North Germany in the past months we never went to any other city except Flensburg few weeks ago. This will have to change as there is just a week left for MIL so we started our Sightseeing Tour with Kiel and its surroundings.

Kiel3 — The beach right next to the submarine

Kiel is the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, the state we live in. The city is only 15 minutes away by car from us so it makes it perfect for my wife to get some real shopping done once a while. The first destination I selected for us was the Laboe Naval Memorial several kilometres away from the city. It is dedicated to all the sailors who died during the world wars. In front of the monument is the old German submarine U-995 which can be entered for a small fee. As we only had little time we had to decide to visit either the monument (which has a fantastic view from the top-level) or the submarine. Because MIL and my wife never had visited a submarine they decided on it and we had a short submarine sightseeing. After that we checked out the local beach and then headed to the city.

Everytime we drive to a new city I feel lost, even with GPS. However Kiel was the worst experience so far for me. The streets there are so confusing that I took more than once (eight times) the wrong turn by going into a street too early. I don’t know what they were thinking when coming up with this street system but I have the feeling that those “planners” were under the influence of something… Anyways, I managed to get us safely to a multi storey park house right next to the main shopping mall of the city “Sophienhof”. As it was already past noon we decided it was better to eat first before doing anything else. So off we went first to the so-called old town of the city where I barely saw any old buildings except the church and a couple of other buldings but that is due to the Second World War as more than 80% of the city was destroyed due to heavy bombings by the Allies. After some walking around we settled on a steak restaurant called “Block House” which belongs to the restaurant chain with the same name. They are pretty famous here for their steaks and many friends recommended it so it was time to actually try their food. Though it was very good I still prefer the steak restaurant in my hometown. Not only due to the lower price but it somehow fits my taste better.

After the mission of filling our stomachs was fulfilled the shopping madness started. I really do believe that MIL can survive a month without food or drink if she just can go around shopping. I always thought my wife is already much into all this shopping stuff but my crazy Chinese mother-in-law is unbeatable in this field. Did I mention the current heat wave already? Well, it is pretty warm here in Germany and during our trip in Kiel we had 33-34 degrees Celsius which is pretty decent for German standards. Of course it can’t compete with the temperatures in Asia but even MIL said it is hot but I guess this is only because there are barely any air conditions around here. Last but not least we headed back to the shopping mall to have some Quark dessert at one of the food stalls and then it was time for one more round of visiting each any every shop in the mall for both of the women. We men (Nathan and I) just walked around, really walked around…Nathan actually pushed his baby stroller first one time around the first floor of the mall and then also on the second floor. After the last round was completed he just turned around, looked at me and raised his arms. This is his signal that he is tired and wants to be carried instead. Many people were actually wondering when we went around as I was walking next to the stroller so from the front it looked like the stroller is moving on its own.

In the end both women were exhausted from this long day and my wife even fell asleep the second she entered the car. I must say it was a nice trip and I wish there would have been some time to go the beach to enjoy the sun better and cool down in the ocean. Sadly MIL does not want any more taint than she already got here in Germany and thus no such activities are possible as long as she is here. Now I just hope for the next heatweave once she is gone so we can relax at the beach at some point. Right now even with the worst heat she still tries to cover little Nathan with clothes as he might get sick if there is some breeze or an evil sunray might burn him to death.