Hopeless Plans

June 28, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 52 Comments

Our China holidays are getting closer and closer. Sure I am very happy and can’t wait for the trip however I am also worried. The thing is that my wife got again some plans on what we should do there and what places to visit. For any outsider this must sound great but you just don’t know my wife so let me explain.

holiday1 — One of my biggest victories: Getting my couch potato wife up the mountain

Over the years we had many plans to travel around when being in China. Those plans always stayed plans as there is something magical happening as soon as my wife enters her parents home. The person who had all those great ideas about visiting some nice places basically disintegrates in front of my eyes as the couch potatoeism spreads through her body. Yes, my wife is a notorious coach potato when being in China. There is no bigger joy for her than lying on the sofa, having her favorite snacks and drinks within arms reach and watching TV all day long. Within seconds all plans are forgotten or not important enough anymore. Who wants to see the beautiful nature in Jiuzhaigou 九寨沟 when you have the 100th rerun of 武林外传 My own Swordsman in the TV, some bubble tea and 大白兔White Rabbit candy?

I think you understand now the dilemma I am facing as my wife is starting to make all kinds of plans for our upcoming holiday. Each time she gets me excited about all those places we plan to visit and in the end we just stay for several weeks in Xi’an and the only times she leaves the apartment on her on free will is in order to go out eating. So what has she planned thus far? Now she no longer wants to visit places in China but is doing research on nice travel destination in Asia which we can reach rather quick (and cheap) from China. Few months ago she made some plans to go to the Jeju Island as her parents had invited us for such trip. Then suddenly she started checking on Thailand but then it was Jeju Island again. This morning she woke me up by pushing her mobile phone in my face. No, she didn’t try to kill me but to show some wonderful pictures of Bali.

While still in bed she started searching for plane tickets, hotels and whatnot all. She even contacted one friend in China if she wants to come with us there together with her little family (they also got a one year old child). Right now I am myself looking up what Bali is offering for tourists and sad but true, I am excited about it. By now I should have learned from the past years but still I really get hyped every time she makes plans because somehow I still have hope that one of those plans will become reality. Though our big plans never worked out we still went sometimes at least to nice places around Xi’an such as Mount Hua or the Mountain Range near Qinghua Mountain. However these destinations are far from the original plans we had before each holiday in China. For now I also hope that MIL won’t suddenly decide it would be a great idea to join us in case the Bali plan ever becomes reality!

Are you a couch potato?

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Plöner See

June 24, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 10 Comments

Remember when I wrote about the city festival in my hometown? There I mentioned that the first two days had superb weather but then everything was drowned by a rainstorm. Well, on that first day of bad weather we went to the Plöner See (Lake Plön) which is about 40 minutes away by car from our place.

Originally we went there because we were invited to try out sailing however once we arrived there was no wind at all. The air was heavy due to an upcoming thunderstorm. Though there was no sunshine it surely was hot with around 30 degrees celsius due to the heavy air. So while waiting for some wind we decided to enjoy the time at the lake as besides us was also another family with their baby there. As we had enough snacks with us we hoped that time would pass quickly till some wind would show up. The children surely loved to play in the water and also to discover the playground even though they were still too young for it. I guess the highlights for Nathan was to run naked around the beach and of course the cable pulley (is it even the right name for it?).

In the end there was plenty of wind however it was combined with heavy rain and before mentioned thunderstorm so we just went home without any sailing. Perhaps next time we will be more lucky and can finally try out some sailing as it at least look pretty interesting.

Have you gone sailing on a lake before? How is it?

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Spending a Day with the Family

June 21, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 21 Comments

I never really did any family research before nor did I try to stay really in touch with my cousins. This changed in the past couple of years as we were planning ourselves for a little family and now have our son. I figured since we were about to move to Germany last year it would be nice to get in touch with some of my relatives again. Not only to meet them again but also nice for Nathan to get to know his extended family. Here in Germany I have several cousins with their own little families. Okay, little is the wrong word as one of my cousins has herself now four children, one girl and three boys. Her second oldest child had her 11th birthday and we were invited to spend the day there.

We had been visiting her before so I was already prepared that four children mean also a lot of action going on non-stop. Once we arrived the little girl got her present, and the only guest she had over was yet another cousin (daughter of another cousin I haven’t seen in over ten years). Well, it wasn’t so much a children’s birthday party but more like an adult birthday as the children were either outside playing or in their rooms. We adults were drinking coffee and had some delicious cake in the beginning and later on BBQ. You could really see that my cousin was happy that her daughter was old enough that the parents didn’t have to come up with games and entertain the daughter and her friends as she was basically discovering her main birthday gift: her first mobile phone! Well, even though this meant there was less work on the birthday itself those other children of her surely still had too much energy and were basically everywhere.

Anne1 — Are you sure? – You don’t say! – OMG

Her youngest child is four and tried is best to copy his older brothers when it comes to terms of climbing trees resulting that he fell down. This fall actually created a huge bump on his head that made him appear like a unicorn. After five minutes of crying the world was fine for him again and he continued climbing the very same tree. I can only say that in case I fall down like that and hit my head I would be in hospital for a few weeks! Kids are just crazy when it comes to recover from such things. Nathan enjoyed his time as well by hunting with his 2nd cousins some bunnies, playing with their toys and being thrown around by the oldest boy who just loves little kids.

Even though we were there only for around 4 hours it was still a very exhausting day. Not only because of all the over eating but also due to all the action going on by the kids the entire time. We made also a deal with the little girl that she will be taking care of our bunnies during our holidays in China. Sure, we need to drive those bunnies extra to my cousin’s house but it will give us another opportunity to meet. Perhaps next time there will be other cousins of me as well, who knows. We also talked a bit about a family gathering as the last one was over ten years ago but in the end it will need some person who takes up the “leadership” and plans the whole event. It would be great to meet as a family again but it will probably depends when someone is able to start planning.