Tag Archives: chinese in germany

Looking back at 2016

January 8, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 36 Comments

Once again a new year has begun and I am really looking forward to it. This is not only because we are expecting in May a little sibling for Nathan but because the past two years were kind of – meh. For one there was the incredible terrible year of 2015 in which I got ill and then 2016 when recovery started.

Though things got better last year it was a really strange year as well. Not that anything bad happened during that year to us, in fact things were going rather smooth in total especially with our business. I’d say all the negative news during that year were putting everything and everyone a bit down. At points my wife was just too scared to fly as she expected terrorist attacks at the airport and we did not visit the local Christmas Market due to the attack in Berlin in early December. Perhaps also having MIL for three months with us put a dark stain on the year but then again it would have not worked without her here at all with us being busy with our busy business and Nathan not having any spot at the Kindergarten (on the waiting list now for nearly three years…).

Not all was bad about 2016 especially as we were able to do some travelling. I think it was actually the year we travelled the most ever. First we had a lovely trip to Cologne in the end of March together with my parents and shortly thereafter we went together with my father to China for nearly three weeks. There we had also the memorable crazy city tour, an experience I shall never forget and of course the weird countryside experience for the rich. During the summer months we drove to Dresden together with MIL to visit some of my old friends and experience that lovely city with its surroundings. Just one week later we flew to Finland to visit my parent’s cottage and then stayed with some of my wife’s Chinese friends in Helsinki for a few days. I’d say that is pretty impressive when it comes to travelling for such lazy people as us and especially as there was still one more trip in autumn to Prague!

In retrospect it appears that 2016 was actually rather good! It always depends on the perspective in the end. Though 2016 was after all pretty good I do hope for a better 2017 with less madness in this world. With this first post in the new year I also want to start blogging more regularly again, somehow I had always some excuses in the past half-year to skip one or two posts a month. My plan for now is to stick with the basic Sunday posts and hopefully being able to throw here and there some mid-week posts again about food, hobbies or actually some videos I am supposed to have uploaded already a year ago on my channel.

How was your year 2016 and what do you have planned for this year?

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 I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Our cute son

Our Christmas 2016

December 26, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 36 Comments

First of all I hope you all had some nice Christmas days whether you celebrated it or not. For us these few days from the 24th till the 26th of December were the first real “holidays” for a very long time. Not really any customers to deal with, no purchasing to do and of course no packing and with it no trouble with MIL.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Timo G (@crazychinesefamily)

This Christmas was also a bit special as it was the first time in years that both my brother and I were at home for the festivities. During the past 10 year it was always either me who was in Finland or my brother being somewhere else in Germany over Christmas. So this year my father had finally both of his sons home again. This also meant that Nathan had some time again to annoy his big Uncle as big uncle is barely ever here due to his work all around Germany. Let’s just say that Nathan surely enjoyed terrorizing big Uncle.

christ2 — We even stole my brother’s Christmas Pyramid (Weihnachtspyramide)!

As for what we did over the past days: eating, nothing but eating. Oh, of course we exchanged gifts in between the eating but that is about all we did. Originally we had planned to go to the Arche Warder on the 25th but as usual the Northern German weather decided to come around with storms and tons of rain. I think this might have been even the greyest and wettest Christmas for me thus far! As you might imagine staying at home for three days and do nothing but eating is not really the healthiest you can do in your life but as my dad would say “You only live once so you have to enjoy all the food while you still can”, what a wise man.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Timo G (@crazychinesefamily)

So here I am still stuffing myself silly with food while checking the calendar with dread as my goal weight for the end of year seems a bit impossible to achieve within the next 5 days (that is if I do not find my own Room of Spirit and Time from Dragonball).

P.S. it is the first time that I use pictures/ videos from Instagram, hope it works.

So what have you done these past days?

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Crazy Germans, Our cute son

Sunday of the Dead

November 20, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 15 Comments

No this is not the title of some old gore horror movie but a Lutheran holiday in Germany. Totensonntag (Sunday of the Dead) was introduced back in 1816 by the Prussian King Frederick William III of Prussia to make the last Sunday before Advent a general celebration in remembrance of the dead. This holiday is observed in all German states and there are some special rules as well such as no music is allowed to be played in public and dancing is forbidden as well!

This Sunday of the Dead we drove together with my parents to Hamburg to the Ohlsdorf Cemetary, trying to find for the very last time the grave of a dear relative of my Dad (Uncle Kurt). Not that he was a close relative, my father does not even remember anymore how they were related but my dad loved him and even bicycled in his youth all the way to Hamburg from our town to visit him. I don’t have too many memories of dear Uncle Kurt as I was just five years old when he passed away. What I still remember is strangely the layout of his apartment, the smell of the cigar smoke and that we always ate cheese cake there. When he passed away he was buried in Ohlsdorf Cemetery and with this cemetery the trouble starts when trying to find a grave again.

ohlsdorf12 — The grave of dear old Uncle Kurt

Ohlsdorf is a bit special as it is actually the biggest rural cemetery in the World and the fourth-largest cemetery in the world. It is just huge with wide streets for cars to pass through and even bus stops. With an area of 391 hectares (966 acres) you might understand why they need those streets and the bus stops. Only once after the funeral my parents were able to locate the grave and that was back in the 90’s. We had tried several times afterwards but to no avail. This time we really needed to find it as by next year the grave will be most likely be removed. The thing in Germany is that you pay for the grave for 25 years. In case no one pays again for another 25 years the grave will be most likely removed by the cemetery to make space for some new arrivals. However this time we were prepared as I had contacted the cemetery and asked about location of the grave. Though we knew where to search we still had to check several hundred graves till we found the right one. We were probably the only relatives who had ever visited his grave since the funeral and lit for the last time a candle for him and his sister.

ohlsdorf3 — Some Finnish Christmas Decoration

After the cemetery we wanted to have something more fun and visited the Christmas Bazaar in the Finnish Seaman’s Church. You might remember that church from the time I wrote about Nathan’s Baptizing there back in 2014. All the Nordic Seaman’s Churches which are next to each other ( The Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian Church) hold this Christmas Bazaar every year for two weekends in a row. As always it was full there, really full. It kind of felt like going around the streets in China just that it was more quiet and organized. Right in the beginning Nathan attracted the attention of Santa and got some chocolate (which he didn’t share!!!). There was all kind of Finnish Christmas decoration for sale and of course food. We also met some other Finnish people who live in our town and even met one of my old Confirmation pals (Affirmation of Baptism). We only went around the Finnish Seaman’s Church as we had little time left so we could not visited the other Nordic Churches and see what they had to offer. Anyhow it was surprising for us that the Finnish Church even got a little supermarket in the basement with all kind of Finnish (overpriced) goods.

ohlsdorf5 — #Nathancuty eating up all of Mommy’s Blueberry Cake

This Totensonntag was the first I went to a cemetery and it felt a bit strange. I guess it might be also because I know it was the last time I was able to visit Uncle Kurt’s grave and that all things come to an end at some point. Luckily we went to the Christmas Bazaar to lighten up the mood a bit otherwise it would have been a really depressing and rainy Sunday today.