Category Archives: Our cute daughter

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

Finland Once Again

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This summer we managed it again to travel to Finland. The last time was back in 2016 and before that we hadn’t been in Finland since we moved to Germany back in 2014. This trip was a bit different from all the other holidays we had thus far as we did not go by plane but by car.

Taking a walk through Bjuv in Skåneland

Our plan was to drive all the way from Germany through Danmark and then to Sweden. There we would stay for a night at my Uncle’s house and continue the next day to Stockholm to take the ferry to Turku (Finland). I must say it was not the easiest car ride in my life but we still managed rather well as little Nathalie the Thunder Goat only got grumpy on the last 1-2 hours of each day. The trip from our hometown to my Uncle in Sweden is around 500km and the trip from there to Stockholm another 550km. Besides those long car rides the trip from the harbour to my parents cottage is like nothing at just 270km. At first I was planning to drive from Germany to Stockholm all in one day but that would have been impossible with Nathalie. Of course MIL managed to sleep the entire trip and thus missing both the big bridges (Great Belt Bridge and Øresund Bridge).

On the ship to Finland

The entire trip to Finland and back again clocked at over four days so we had only ten days in Finland of our two-week (unpaid) holidays. The first week we stayed at my parents cottage at Nummijärvi where I had once again more than enough work to do from mowing the lawn over chopping firewood to trying to figure out why the boat engine isn’t really working. Besides that we also visited an old friend of my mother in Vähäkyrö and basically just enjoyed the life at the cottage. Nothing special happened there except that I crashed my drone into a tree so I had to chop that one down as well just after finishing all the firewood tasks, just basic luck for me.

The big church in Vähäkyrö

At the cottage both kids finally were able to spend their entire energy each day. Never before it took less than 30s to get Nathan to sleep. Even Nathalie was a manageable beast during that week and slept rather well. My dear Chinese mother-in-law was the basic herself and did strange things such as going out each day with a fly swatter and trying to kill mosquitos or suddenly disappearing into the forest to collect blueberries without proper shoes (there are vipers everywhere!!!). All in all I enjoyed the week at the cottage and the next blog post will be about Helsinki, Moominworld and the trip back to Germany.

What is the longest distance you travelled by car?

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, Our cute daughter, Our cute son, Travels

Beautiful Osaka

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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.

At Sumiyoshi taisha

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!

Shinsekai by night

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.

Yep, Nathan loved them

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!

Has bad weather ruined your holiday plans 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 there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

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https://www.instagram.com/Crazychinesefamily

Crazy Germans, Our cute daughter, Our cute son

Living as an Interracial Couple in Germany – Three Years Later

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In January 2015 I described our life in Germany with all the difference challenges and difficulties we had experienced in the first few months of living here. First of all I was rather shocked when I saw that the article Living as an Interracial Couple in Germany is already three years old! Up till this point I did not even realize that we have lived for so long time already in this country. For me it feels like we just left Finland one or maximum two years ago. This just shows that time passes by faster the older you get/ when you have kids keeping you busy.

Demons from Hell have arrived to stop the digitalization in Germany

My first point of annoyance three years ago was about applying for the residence permit and Germany still being in the stone age when it comes to digitalization.  Thing is we had to renew her residence permit half-year ago and it was once again a very special experience when the nice lady at the office for foreigners was once again going through countless of folders and law books. No Germany did not manage to reach the digital age within those three years. Besides the nice lady was even surprised that we had a second child by now and we were required to hand them the birth certificate. Not that I received that very certificate from the same building just 20m away in another office last summer…nothing really nothing can be viewed from their PC’s as everything is kept in folders and each office still requires their very own copy of every certificate.

#Nathancuty and grandpa are busy watching TV

What about the weird stares on the streets and people taking our mail out of the trash to spread it all over the street? The thing with the mail stopped and I suspected a couple of neighbours but nothing can be proven any longer. Those certain neighbours have moved away or died in the past years so we will never know.  Surprisingly also the weird stares on the streets are very rare these days and I can’t even remember when it happened the last time. In the past years many Asians (majority of them are Chinese) moved to this little town and its surrounding villages. The people here see pretty much every day several Asians and also WMAF/ AMWF couples can be seen daily. No one has yet said anything towards us or “behind our backs” so I am pretty happy with the current situation when it comes to this aspect.

You can have never enough Lego Duplo

By now Nathan has also overcome more or less his language difficulties as he is pretty fluent in Mandarin and in German. In fact his Mandarin is better than his German languages skills but we do not worry about it as he is improving a lot in it ever since he started kindergarten last summer. Besides those two languages he knows a bit of English and at least few words in Finnish. In the kindergarten they also do not discourage parents and the kids anymore when it comes to growing up bilingual unlike back in the day when my mother was forced to quit speaking Finnish to me. At least in Nathan’s kindergarten they teach also a bit of English for the older kids.

That little man will turn 4 next month!!

I am very surprised how much the situation  improved for us here in the past years especially with some neighbours passing away. We are not even that annoyed anymore when it comes to giving each office here some extra copies of this and that certificate or document, you just get used to it. It is a fact that Germany is far behind when it comes to digitalisation than other “leading nations” in the world. At least we can have now again normal internet speed as our connection went up from the terrible 16 Mbps to 500Mpbs. It was really strange when we moved here and they could only give us that kind of slow connection as nothing else was possible here in this city.

Both my wife and I do not regret moving from Finland to Germany at all. We had a good life in Finland without too many difficulties but everything improved ever since moving here. Life is cheaper in Germany and we can earn more than before in addition to be working from home which is so much better also for the children.  The only thing worrying us right now is to make plans for buying or building a house in the next few years as this apartment won’t be big enough anymore once the children want to have separate rooms, but that is something for another time.

How has your life changed in the past three years?

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.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.instagram.com/Crazychinesefamily