Tag Archives: crazy Chinese family

Family Fishing Tour

April 4, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 28 Comments

Back in the day my family used to do a lot together such as going on holidays or simply meeting once in a while. Those days where all before I was born. Back then my brother Ulf went sometimes with his uncle and cousins for holidays abroad, went out eating and most importantly he and his cousin Frank had some little fishing tours. Both were still young in those days and as they got older they did not meet up for fishing any longer. Certainly my brother and his cousins still had contact during the past 30 years but it was not that much as before.

What a wonderful and interesting landscape

Last month we had our first Family Gathering since 2005. There my brother and cousin Frank somehow got to talk about fishing again. Thing is my brother did not fish since the old days but Frank stepped up the game and has caught pretty much every possible fish available in Northern Germany and Denmark. When he talked during the gathering about the past years and especially about fishing it sparked something in my brother again. Somehow I also got again interest in fishing (which I did sometimes in Finland with some old and cheap equipment) and shortly after the gathering we had a Fishing Family Group Chat on WhatsApp.

Walking over those rocks with all the equipment is not the easiest thing in the world

This all developed further within short time and for my birthday I got from my brother some new and very good fishing equipment. After that we all decided on a date on which we would meet up in Flensburg (where my cousin lives) and from there to Denmark for a daylong fishing tour at the Baltic Sea. This trip was going to be the first I did without my wife ever since we got together in 2010. Good thing that my brother decided that we should go a day earlier to Flensburg as we had a lot to prepare and to be able to arrive in Denmark as early as possible. Thing is we underestimated how much we had to prepare and in the end we all went sleeping around 1:30 am and had to wake up at 4:30 am! I can tell you that those few hours of sleep did not really give us enough rest for the rest of the day.

Last look at the sea before returning home

We left for Denmark shortly after 5am and drove to some “top spots” our cousin recommended as he had caught some nice fishes there over the past years. We all were so enthusiastic and excited when we arrived at the first location, not only because of the possibility of catching some fish but also because it was something we did together as a family. Quickly my brother and I got into our wetsuits and went into the sea. Let’s just say it was not the most successful fishing day for all of us as we did not catch any fish the entire day. We did not even spot any fish but at least we were not the only ones as all other fishermen we met had the same bad luck on that day.

Even though we did not catch anything is was still an enjoyable day. First of all because we spent the day together and then also because of the wonderful nature all around us. I mean look at the great landscape in those pictures! Sure it was a bit disappointing to come back home in the evening empty-handed but nonetheless it felt great to come back home totally exhausted from fishing the entire day. Will I do such trip again? Definitely! In fact we are planning for another trip in the end of this month however it is not sure yet whether I will go as my wife and I are expecting soon our baby girl to be born.

Have you tried fishing?

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Something More About Me

March 26, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 37 Comments

After nearly three weeks without any blog post I finally managed to sit down again and write a bit. We had tons of stuff to do here plus I turned thirty this month and thus I had no motivation to do any blogging related work. However things calmed down and I managed to convince myself that nothing is really different after turning thirty.

Some of you might remember the blog article I had a year ago titled “Something About Me” in which I showed you my little refuge. That place is very dear to me as I have most of my books all around me and most importantly also my computer. This time I will show you one more time a picture of my refuge as it has a new addition since my birthday in form of a Lego Tie Fighter, indeed it is looking great here (though Molag Bal might be sad as I had to move him a bit more to the right to make space). Besides that little addition in my refuge I have something more to share with you about me.

At some point I managed in some blog post (I really don’t remember when it was and in which article) that we have few pets. For one we have two bunnies which had already their introduction nearly two years ago and then we have some animals which prefer to live under water. Somehow I was able to convince my wife to get one aquarium when we moved here however the number increased within short time to three tanks. When I was a kid I had also one aquarium and I loved it but had to get rid of it once I started going abroad for an exchange year during my high school years. After that I always wanted to start again but never had the space, time and money for it. Ever since we decided to move to Germany I made plans to change that situation and get myself an aquarium immediately after moving.

My main tank is a small 60l (~16gal) Optiwhite Aquarium and is standing right in our living room. In that aquarium I focused heavily on the appearance with rocks, roots and a lot of different plants. To get the most out of the plants I have a strong LED lights, a CO2 system and I am fertilizing with special products. Besides all those plants I have also several shrimps, snails and fishes (Octocinclus affinis and Trigonostigma heteromorpha). The other two tanks are each 30l and I got them to them to have another home for my shrimps. They are also filled with all kinds of plants however I am not doing anything special with them and in the past two years I did not even need to cut the plants whereas in the main tank I need to swing the scissors every week!

The pictures of the main tank are appearing a bit blurry as the CO2 is getting into the water with a diffuser which created millions of little bubbles. To be honest I did not want to show the main tank as it is not ready and I have the feeling it will never be ready. Just in the beginning of the year I had to cut down everything to a bare minimum and throw out tons of plants due to a heavy Cladophora infestation (nasty nasty kind of algae). Though I still have few Cladophora nests left in the aquarium and the plants haven’t recovered 100% I decided it is time to take a few pictures. In case I would ever compete in some aquascaping competion (yes there are competitions for that!) I would need to wait another few months for all the plants to recover.

A small growing Bucephalandra sp. (no idea about its name)

I do hope I did not bore you too much with this post but it is a hobby I have been doing since we moved to Germany and I just loved it. For me it is just so relaxing and pleasing to create little landscapes under water and give the animals a nice environment to live in. I even have big plans for new and much bigger tanks in the future but that will have to wait till we move into a big house or something like that.

Some plants and some fishes and lots of water

What are your hobbies you do in order to relax?

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Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Our cute son

Family Gathering

March 5, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 18 Comments

This weekend we had just our first Family Gathering since 2005. Back in the day it was organized, just like all the previous Family Gatherings, by my Uncle who passed away a few years after that last meeting. For twelve years we did not meet in such a way again until my cousin (daughter of my uncle) decided to change this and started contacting us last autumn.

familientreffen12 — The old boys playing some game together (cousin and my brother), in the background my father

First of all it started with a simple family group chat on WhatsApp and from then on the planning progressed quickly (Even my 75 year old father is in that group). The destination for the gathering was found in short time as it was the same place the family had met before. In my case I was around ten years of age when I was there for the first and only time. Back then the group was much smaller as none of the many cousins had children. Even at our last gathering in 2005 there were still many children not yet born. For this meeting we had ten kids making it a total of 21 family members at this gathering. This is the “close” family we have here in Germany. I doubt we would ever manage to plan a Gathering for the entire family as it could easily reach up to 150 people or more.

familienbild-2017-tonning — All in one group picture

The little village called Tönning was our meeting place right by the North Sea. It is a fairly small village with just 5000 inhabitants. Due to its location it was an important sea port till the end of the 19th century. Then the Kiel Canal was built which made the route via the Eider river obsolete. These days the historical port is a tourist destination with lovely old houses which have been transformed into restaurants and hotels. Just few minutes from our hotel is the Multimar Wattforum which is an information center for the Wadden Sea National Park. This place is just great for kids as they can learn everything about the Wadden Sea from the tides over the important work of the many different worms to the big sharks and wales living in the North Sea. I’d say we all enjoyed the time spent there and it was just so fascinating to see what animals are all living there.

familientreffen5 — Later at the dinner (table with tons of kids not shown is to the left)

Later that day we all had a lovely dinner together which lasted until the late evening hours. All in all it was a wonderful time and so great to see all of my cousins again. Especially Nathan had a great time with so many other kids around playing with him. By the end he was so exhausted that he started to fall asleep while sitting at the dinner table. Even my late Uncle was present at the dinner in form of a picture one of his daughters had brought with her portraying him with a big small and raising a pint. The good thing about our close family is that we all live in the same State and that from my hometown (which is right in the middle of the State) it is to each one of my cousins it just take a bit over one hour by car. Now I just hope that we will be able to organize such gathering again in the near future and not to wait another twelve years. We have high hopes to have such meeting again perhaps next year!