Chinese Wife, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Germans, Haruki the Shiba, Our cute daughter, Our cute son

Revisiting the Middle Ages

June 23, 2019 CrazyChineseFamily 6 Comments

Last weekend we visited a Renaissance Fair again after three years. The last time we went back in 2016 in Hamburg which is/ was the biggest one in Germany. This time we went to the town of Hohenwestedt which is nearby my hometown and is probably the best location of all middle age markets we have visited. The entire fair is set up in a large park in the middle of the town and a small sports field next to it. The feeling is just so different when visiting such event when nearly everything is located in a park surrounded by huge old trees compared to other fairs where you only walk around an open field.

We all (except MIL) went there dressed up in some costumes. Nothing historical correct or whatnot all, just what we like to and this kind of fair is just right for it as the name already says “Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum” – “Medieval Fantasy Spectaculum”. You can see all kinds of people there dressed as knights, monks, Vikings, death and even some animals. Anything goes and the atmosphere is just great with music playing from several music stages and some randomn groups playing in between. We met some friends there and of course also other people we know already from my hometown such some neighbors and even a civil official working in the registry office specialized on marriages who has a Galadriel tattoo on one of his arms.

It was a lovely day with nice weather and a lot of walking for us. Nathan and Nathalie had tons of fun in the straw bale field playing with other kids and I could enjoy a couple of “interesting drinks”. Visiting such event, especially in Hohenwestedt, feels like entering a different world disconnected from the outside. Clothing for the event was kind of odd at first as we hadn’t done so in way too many years but as soon as we left the parking lot we were surrounded by like-minded people and everything felt right. Ruowei went once again as a Chinese princess, Nathalie was a mini princess, Nathan a General and I went in some odd mix of clothing and armor similar to the Rangers of Ithilien. Nothing too fancy but it took us long time collecting everything till we were satisfied. I think it was back in 2015 when we started this all after visiting the very same Renaissance Fair for the first time as a family. Back then my wife was shocked to see so many people dressed up for such event and loved it immediately. I always wanted to dress up for something like that but I had no idea that my wife of all people would like it as well! Even after several years of marriage she still manages to surprise me from time to time.

Have you visited any events where you have dressed up in a similar way?

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Crazy Family, Travels

Delightful Disneyland

June 10, 2019 CrazyChineseFamily 14 Comments

One of the reasons I could convince my wife to visit Hong Kong was the prospect of spending a day at Disneyland. For all the past years we had plans of visiting a Disneyland. Here in Europe we got Disneyland Paris but the costs of travelling there and spending just two days pretty much equals the flight tickets for the entire family to Japan! The thought of visiting Disneyland here popped up from time to time but due to our penny-pinching nature those ideas were quickly quenched. Last year we travelled to Japan so the idea of Disneyland came up again but we decided against it as Nathalie was just way too young to enjoy it and have some faint memories of it later. This year however we planned for a day at Hong Kong Disneyland for a very long time. My wife especially planned our trip so well that she had decided on a specific day to go there based on our travel plans within Hong Kong and most importantly on the number of average visitor of the theme park. All those plans were for naught as she did not consider one factor: The Weather!

While we had pretty stable weather during our first days with some sunshine all rainy hell broke loose after our trip to Lamma Island. It was not just some drizzle but more like a constant water fall flooding the streets. The day of our planned visit to Disneyland came and was washed away by the rains. In fact we already gave up on visiting the theme park and planned for some other trip to Hong Kong the following year or so. However the kids were so sad about not being able to go to Disneyland, especially because my wife hyped them up for it with videos of the park and Disney Movies for several weeks prior to our holidays that we decided to take the risk of being drowned in the rain and just went there on our fourth day in Hong Kong.

We took the metro and as soon as the train left the safe underground tunnels we were surrounded by rain. However we were prepared with umbrellas, raincoats and rain boots for the kids. But then we got really lucky as the rain stopped as soon as we arrived at Disneyland and no drop fell down from the clouds until the evening. I mean we had so bad luck in the past six months that we could not fathom something lucky as that happening to us at all anymore. Arriving at the Disneyland station felt so strange as you are immediately “transferred” into some strange and happy fantasy world. Everywhere you go you have some calming background music, the park is designed that you forget the outside world and you really feel like that you stepped into some other place entirely disconnected from the outside. Well that is at least how I felt. To make matters even better was the fact that there were really few people visiting as the weather report had forecast heavy rainstorms for the entire day. This meant for us that we never had to wait more than five minutes for any ride.

I will never ever go on a rollercoaster in the dark again

The kids loved everything there and wanted to go on every single amusement ride. Needless to say that Nathalie was more than once disappointed as she was just to small for the rollercoasters and few other rides. Nathan however was able to go on every ride except one in Toy Story Land where there height requirement was minimum 120cm were he fell short by a few centimeters. All prior research and planning of my wife for this visit came in handy as we arrived at each ride at the right time in order to have short waiting times, not missing any important parade and to go to the best possible restaurant for our requirements. The food was plenty and well enough for a theme park. Nothing extraordinary but on a sad note it was one of the best food we had during our trip to Hong Kong. I know food is not everything went travelling but we had our disappointments with restaurants during our stay.

One of the main parts was the Flights of Fantasy Parade were pretty much every visitor came to the main road to watch. Towards the end the actors/ artists/ performers (what is the right term here?) invited some kids from the audience to dance and play with them. Our little Nathan was one of them and just beamed all the time while Nathalie screamed like a demon as she didn’t like to be apart from her brother (or just angry for not being invited, you never know with her). One of the interesting parts of this parade was in fact a person in the audience, an elderly woman in a wheelchair who apparently had the time of her life dancing and singing that even some of the performers came to her to dance. In the evening just when to “We love Mickey” Projection show ended the rain started and we quickly hurried back to the train station. By the time we arrived again in Mong Kok the rain had transformed into a proper storm and just walking from the station to our apartment left us soaking wet even with umbrellas and raincoats. For this day I have to say that we really got lucky and I hope the kids will have fond memories of it.

Grizzly Gulch, one of the most fun rollercoaster experiences for me

Have you visited a Disneyland?

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Wistful Wuhan

May 19, 2019 CrazyChineseFamily 11 Comments

We are back from China and it is time for some blog posts again! The past month I had no articles here as we were in China and I didn’t feel like writing any lengthy bit on my phone or tablet for this blog. I also did not reply on any comments on my last article as I just can’t do it, at least not for now or even for a long time. However I did post more or less frequently some pictures on Instagram. All of our planning for the holidays in China was changed in a rather drastic manner after receiving terrible news few days before the flight. In fact a lot of the plans changed but we did stick to travel to Wuhan.

For Wuhan we had so many plans meeting with our friends and the trip turned into something entirely different. We did see some of the city as my wife tried her best to comfort her friend by going to places away from home. It was not a week for full of merriment but we did try to make the most of it for us and our friend. We had lengthy strolls around parks, visited Wuhan city center with a bit of sightseeing, ate some nice food and tried to have as much entertainment for the kids as possible.

We visited the Zhongshan Park for a nice change of scenery and to visit the theme park there for the kids. For me it was rather interesting to see a Zhongshan Park after visiting the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing back in 2016. Besides this it was very strange for at least me to find a theme park located inside that park. It is a nice little theme park with many different amusement rides for kids of all ages. From the park it is also easy to travel to many other sights by metro such as The Bund, Riverside Park and many shopping streets. Wuhan has still some very interesting “historical” buildings right next to towering new structures.

I can’t even say anymore exactly what we all visited as the whole trip is in some kind of blur for me. Sure we saw some sights but we did not visit any of the very famous places such as the Yellow Crane Tower or the East Lake. Our focus was on other things so I do not really have much to write about Wuhan. But what I can say is that Wuhan is certainly a city to visit when going to China as there is just so much going on with so many different sights and feelings to each area. Besides that I can also add that Xi’an seems to be a small town compared to Wuhan. Of course I know that Wuhan is a bigger city with few million more inhabitants but it has just a different vibe to Xi’an where the long history is shown especially with the architecture in the city center within the old city walls. Something else I have to add: I did not understand anything when people talked in the Wuhan dialect, nothing at all!

Next up will be much more as it is all about our trip to Hongkong and Disney Land!