Going to China

April 17, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 45 Comments

This will be just a short blog post as I am in the middle of craziness which happens when you fly next morning and nothing is ready yet. I always promise myself that I will start the preparation process much earlier the next time but thus far I have failed all my life with it.

The day has been spent by running through the city to buy last presents for the family and all kind of other people we meet there, finishing up MIL’s Visa application (indeed the Chaos Queen is coming again to bring us terror this summer), packing, packing more, running again to city to buy stuff we forgot, packing, bringing the bunnies to my parents apartment, cleaning the fish tanks, packing, taking care that my father has everything with him, filling out papers for the customs, running again to the city, packing, cleaning the apartment and starting to think how on earth we get to the airport next morning.

As you can see it has been a really fun day but now I am also happy that my mother is staying behind in Germany. Now she can take care of our bunnies, feed the fishes and shrimps, refill the tanks, water the flowers and I hope we have a clean apartment again once we return and a filled fridge. For me a holidays never starts till I am in the final stretch to the journey. So this means for our trip that my holiday won’t start till we are sitting in the plane from Helsinki to Xi’an. The flight from Hamburg to Helsinki is still unsettling as we had it before that it was delayed and thus we missed our connecting flight and thus we had to return home after running through the airport for an entire day to try to catch other flights (more about that at some point in the future, even now after so long time I am still very annoyed about that day).

What worries me right now the most is the part where we all get picked up from Xi’an airport by my in-laws. We are three adults plus little Nathan with tons of luggage. To be precise the first four suitcases filled the entire trunk of my parents car (mom will try her best to drive us to the airport, yay and it is really scary). My in-laws don’t have any car and I don’t think that anyone of their friends does have a big enough car…

moving4 — The car is about this full once again

Oh no, now I am worrying again too much about it and I should actually go to bed instead to get few hours of rest before this upcoming too long day. The only positive thing right now on my mind is the food in China which I have missed for far too long.

When do you start preparing for going to holidays?

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Looking Forward to the Future

April 10, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 53 Comments

Perhaps some still remember my blog post about how unforseen events can change your life and that my health hasn’t been the best for a long time. I wrote that about half-year ago and now it seems things are finally looking brighter. With the trip last week to Cologne some of you might have noticed that I am actually able to go on a trip. Ever since the beginning of this year my health has been improving and I could also reduce the med intake. This helped a lot to feel better mentally because you won’t really feel in good shape when you see how much medication you have to take just to get the day started.

This year is still young and already much has changed. I left my job as I wouldn’t be able to really find my way back in after being away for so long time. Now that would make me unemployed again in some sense but I have still the business with my wife in which I started to help out more and more again with my improving health. As things are looking much better again for me we decided to “redo” the trip to China which I had to abort last year. So in one week we are flying once again to Xi’an and stay there for nearly three weeks. To make things a bit more interesting my father is coming with us again. What about my dear mother? When we invited her she just said “One time in China is more than enough for me!”, okay…

In China we will spend most of the time in Xi’an but according to my wife we will actually go on some trip again with a tourist group. You know my feelings about those tourist groups but well, at least we will be going somewhere this time. What makes this trip a bit more complicated is that my father is not the youngest anymore with his 75 years and then the issue when it comes to food. We have to schedule everything well so he does not get too exhausted and we have to find a healthy mix for him between Chinese food and some Western restaurants (looking at you Pizza Hut). I hope he will enjoy this trip as it won’t be this time as hot as it was back when he visited the first time in 2011 during the hot July weeks.

Xi'an Dream — Finally going to Xi’an again

It still feel weird for me to actually plan such things again. There I was half-year ago and things were kind of bleak and now I am going to a three-week holiday in China. Besides that I slowly started with some sports again to get back in shape as far as it is possible right now. Will I ever be back to 100%? No, I won’t be but that is alright. The possible 90% are already more than I have ever imagined several months ago. Now I am looking forward to this summer and I really want to have a proper visit at the beach this year!

How has been your year thus far?

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Few Days in Cologne

April 3, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 64 Comments

This week we had a special little trip to Cologne, better known for Germans under the name Köln. So what brought us down to Middle Germany, the babaric part south of the river Elbe? My wife had some business to attend there so we decided to make a quick three-day holiday in Cologne. As my mother’s birthday was at the same time we invited my parents to come with us (of course we paid everything ). Somehow luck was on our side and I was able to get a good deal for two rooms and two nights at the Hyatt, let’s just say the breakfast is really good at least for people like me and not so special for people like my Chinese wife…

First some background info about Cologne. It is the fourth biggest city in Germany with a bit over 1 million inhabitants. The city has many famous landmarks with the Cologne Cathedral being probably the most well-known. During the Second World War 95% of the city was destroyed and the population had been reduced by over 90%, no wonder it was even called “world’s greatest heap of rubble”. Even though Cologne had been reduced to basically nothing it was rebuild again with reconstruction work lasting until the 1990s. You can check out pictures of how the city looked like after the war on any search engine and it is really amazing how people were able to rebuild it all again.

Our journey started on Tuesday morning but we wouldn’t arrive in Cologne until late afternoon due to terrible weather and several traffic jams. Under normal conditions the drive would usually take roughly five hours but in our case it took more than seven hours, no joy…really. Especially Nathan was a bit odd during that trip as he did not fall asleep at all and was full of energy until the late evening hours. Our hotel was located in a just perfect location as it is just few minutes away by walking from the city center. All you have to do is cross the Hohenzollern Bridge and you are standing right in front of the Cologne Cathedral. The Hohenzollern Bridge itself is one of the landmarks of Cologne and also famous for the thousands of love padlocks placed on the fence between the footpath and the railway lines.

k13 — Cologne Cathedral in the early morning hours

The second day my wife had to be at another hotel already at six AM for her appointment and as it was still dark I walked her there. On my way back to our hotel I took a route through the still empty city center and could take some nice pictures. Later that day we all went once again to the city center and walked by few famous landmarks, the main shopping street and went into the Cologne Cathedral. The Cathedral is just huge, walking around the insides reminded me on the Halls of Moria from Lord of the Rings due to the giant pillars. Visitors can also climb a spiral staircase to a viewing platform at 98m above the ground. I don’t know if it is possible for visitors to climb also the towers which reach up to 157m above ground. Even though we had a wonderful and very filling breakfast we were getting hungry at some point and went to eat at Oma’s Küche (Grandmother’s Kitchen) which is known for its Schnitzel dishes. Though it is very simple food it is still very delicious and more than just filling as the portions are pretty big. In the evening my wife and I went to the Spring Funfair just few minutes away from the hotel. Perhaps you remember one of my blog posts about the funfair at my hometown and how disappointing is was for me to see how small it had become. Well, the funfair in Cologne was so full that it was sometimes impossible to move around. It seems that at least in bigger cities the funfairs are still well visited.

On our last day we left Cologne right after breakfast as we were afraid to be stucked in multiple traffic jams again but to our surprise nothing major happened and we arrived in the afternoon. All in all it was a very nice trip and I recommend going to Cologne in case you are for some time in Germany. We had planned to visit some more places in Cologne such as the Chocolate Museum and other landmarks around the city but the weather was first of all not the best during those days and we just had too little time.