Category Archives: Travels

Chinese Wife, Crazy Chinese People, Travels, Uncategorized

The time we actually travelled somewhere in China (Jianmenguan Pass)

December 6, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 32 Comments

Remember all the times I wrote we never managed to go anywhere outside of Xi’an during all of our holidays there? I must admit that is not entirely true as we have visited many places around the city such as Mount Hua, the Shaanxi wild animal conversation research center and the Zoological Park. These places are not that far away from Xi’an however once we managed it even into another Province: Sichuan! I had nearly forgotten about it but untill I stumbled upon the pictures. This particular trip was at the Jianmenguan Pass which has much history behind it (like nearly every other place in China…).

mt5 — Jianmenguan Pass with the fortress

We got to that mountain area by bus which we took from Xi’an. I don’t remember anymore how long the trip was exactly but I guess it was round 6 hours. It was a small bus filled with many other people from our tourgroup, nearly all of them were in their 60s to 70s. As many of you know some Chinese can be rather noisy when traveling and this meant no sleep at all during the entire trip. Thankfully the bus had a small TV and the bus driver was so nice to play some Stephen Chow movies which helped to forget about all the noisy non-stop chatter and food throwing around. Sadly we didn’t had the best weather during that time but at least it wasn’t raining when we reached Jianmenguan Pass. There we had the option to go straight to the fortification by walking for 30min or take a cable car half way up the mountain and walk from there 45min to the fortification and the little town behind it. Of course there was also an option to get to the mountain top where now also a viewing platform made out of tempered glass is crowning the top but that would have costs an additional 30 Dollars per person and there was simply no time in the schedule for it (tour groups rarely leave space for going around on your own).

Nearly the entire tour group decided for the option to go half way up the mountain and then walk to the fortification with only few people deciding on the shorter way. To our surprise there was a little extra for the more adventurous people after the cable car ride, the Birdsway! Me and my wife took it of course as we had no desire to walk on a normal street around and I quickly regretted that decision. First of all this path went up some stairs, bazillion of stairs to be precise. But that wasn’t the bad thing yet, not even when the stairs started to go straight up the mountain side with only a chain to hold onto. No…it wasn’t the worst part though it was very exhausting. The worst part for a person like me with Acrophobia (fear of heights) was when the small path leading up the mountain became suddenly 30-40cm wide with only a chain protecting against falling down the cliff side! As I am so afraid of heights I can’t really say how high this cliff side was so it could be anything between 30-100m. Even though the view was stunning I was terrified up there and it wasn’t helping at all to see other Chinese tourists leaning over the chains to take some crazy selfies. I was just so relived when the path ended and the normal way around the mountain started again. Mind you, it was still exhausting as there were still hundreds of stairs going up and down but no more cliff side craziness.

mt10 — My nightmare (of course I don’t mean my wife!)

The rest of the hike was going through a beautiful landscape full of old cypress trees and from time to time some small bamboo groves. Needless to say the wonderful landscape and peace was always interrupted by some food stalls standing in the middle of nowhere clustered with dozens of tourists enjoying their 10th cup noodle (must be some kind of challenge to stop at every food stall and eat noodles!). Funny enough people always assumed there that I am from Xinjiang, don’t ask me why. In the end we reached the famous fortress at the Shu Road which enabled small forces to hold against huge armies due to its strategic position. Afterwards we still had to walk for a few minutes until we reached a little village located there and have our lunch with the rest of the tour group. What I still remember about the food is that the tour guide “prepared” us for 15 minutes during our trip to the mountain that every dish will have tofu and is super delicious, repeating tofu and delicious about 100 times. But yes, it was indeed delicious!

Do you have a fear of heights?

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Chinese Wife, Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Travels

A Weekend in Sotkamo

November 29, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 35 Comments

Back in 2011 we visited my wife’s friends in Sotkamo which is in the in the middle east of Finland. From Helsinki Sotkamo is about 580km away by car which means that it takes over 6 1/2 h to get there. So why my wife has friends in the middle of nowhere of Finland? In 2006 my wife started her studies in Finland. She didn’t study in Helsinki in the beginning but in Kajaani which is roughly 30km to the west of Sotkamo. She stayed there for one year until she found another university and moved to Helsinki. During that one year she made many new friends and one of them she still considers to be her best friend and that is the one we visited back then.

We went there in December which means that there is snow, too much snow all around and it is cold, too cold! We left our home near Helsinki at 6am in order to arrive at a reasonable time in Sotkamo for lunch. During those morning hours we had about -16 degrees (Celsius ~ 3 degrees Fahrenheit) which was already a challenge for my poor Diesel powered Opel Astra. Nonetheless the car managed somehow however during the drive to Sotkamo the temperatures plummeted sometimes down to -40 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit). Let me just say that in never got warm inside the car and even the car engine decided not get warm and thus many other things didn’t work such as the Turbo…(really great when the car has suddenly troubles to get up a small hill!).

It was also during that trip that we had our first (and only) car crash. The whole mess happened towards the final 100km of the journey and wasn’t fun at all. You have to imagine having a road covered in a layer own snow which is compressed and thus nearly like ice at such low temperatures. Somehow I got with my right front tire too much to the right where the snow layer was higher and then everything happened rather quick. At over 80km/h (~50 mp/h) the car started spinning around crashing on the opposite lane into the fields just barely missing an oncoming truck. I don’t know how but nothing happened to us or the car! Some driver who saw everything came to our aid and managed to call on some farmer who pulled us out of the field with his tractor for very little money. I will never forget the feeling when I lost control over the car and saw during the spinning motion the truck coming closer and closer.

snow4 — Getting ready for some cross-country skiing failure

With some delay we managed it finally to Sotkamo where we had our lunch at the friend’s restaurant. Compared to Helsinki Sotkamo was already entirely in the Christmas season with too much snow all around. The little town is known for its skiing resort Vuokatti. It was there I tried my luck to teach my wife how to do cross-country skiing but it didn’t work out so well. In fact my wife gave up after a while so I decided to do a short 2.5 km round but got lost somehow and had to do a 15km round. The skiing center in Vuokatti is very famous in Finland as it offers a variety of possible activities such as downhill skiing, cross-country, ski jumping and there is also a cross-country skiing tunnel which makes training on snow possible during summer time. Though it offers so many sport activties we spent the least time doing any kind of sporty stuff there. My wife had more important things to do with her friends such as talking, eating, watching movies, eating and eating. As said before one of her friends got back then a Chinese restaurant in the town resulting that there was always more than enough food.

As Sotkamo is very small with only 10.000 inhabitants there is also not much to do within the city center. There are some shops around but that’s about it. During winter it is a perfect place for winter sport enthusiasts and in summer time it offers great hiking trails. What makes this place also interesting is that it is not that far away from the Arctic Circle and Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi where my wife visited once with her friends in 2009 but that is again stuff for another time.

What a historic moment for my good old car back then

Sotkamo Church hidden behind snow and tress

Have you visited a place with more than enough snow to get already annoying for you?

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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.