It is time once again to share another video from the depths of my hard drive. Todays topic is a bit different than usual as there is nothing about my crazy Chinese mother-in-law, Chinese Food, my family or Nathan. However it is still linked to China as you might have guessed from the title.
In 2012 we went to China during September for a few weeks and back then it was also my first (and only) time being in China for the Mid-Autumn Festival. During those weeks we had few trips to the surroundings such as the Qinling Zoological Park, Mount Hua and also the Qinling Mountain Range (Qin Mountains) just few kilometres south of Xi’an. Especially the trip to the Qinling Mountain Range is in my memory, not due to MIL though she did a lot of weird stuff there as well but due to one single person bicycling uphill…
To this day I am speechless on what humans can achieve when putting their mind and body behind something. I am no stranger to bicycling myself as I do my tours each year but overtaking a car going uphill in the mountains is still something I won’t be able to do any time soon.
Have you witnessed any similar event where someone surprised you by their mental or physical prowess?
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
Today was the annual duck race in my hometown. As you might have read in many other blog posts is the fact that here in my hometown is barely anything to do with the exception of a few events a year. One might say that they roll up the sidewalks here in the afternoon. This means that having such event is pretty much one of the main activities for the people here. Besides this sunday was also a “Sunday Shopping Day” as normally shops are closed on Sundays. This year marked also the 12th anniversary of this event here and was celebrated with tons of activities for children.
Shortly after the start of the event
So what is this duck race? Basically it is a “race” of rubberducks down the pond and stream here in this town. Duck Races can be found all over the world but thus far I have only visited this one here. Any person can purchase a duck for a few Euros and gets a number for the duck. By buying one of this ducks you can participate in this race and have the chance to win some nice things such as a 2000€ travel voucher, a new TV etc. The avail of this event is later on donated to some charity programs.
The race starts by pouring all the ducks from a container which is lifted by a crane into the pond. The pond and the little river have a little race track/ plastic barriers so that the ducks follow a specific route till they arrive at a bridge few hundred meters away. Depending on the weather the whole competition might take 20 minutes or even several hours! This year we missed the start of the race as little Nathan took his sweet time waking up from his nap so we arrived few minutes too late. But we were still early enough to see the beginning of the race when all the ducks were massed up before slowly spreading all over the race track.
Ducks racing towards the finish line
The pond and the river are at a little park located in the center of Neumünster and everywhere some attractions were offered for kids. Especially the radio controlled helicopters and ships interested many fathers as well (me included)! Somehow I feel like purchasing an own radio controlled helicopter now myself to harass some of the annoying neighbours but I guess that would be a bad idea…
It is too bad that Nathan is still too young to fully understand everything around him and enjoy some of the attraction for the children such as the jumping castle, some little animals from the zoo or the before mentioned radio controlled vehicles. Anyways this event seems to be going strong and I have no doubt it will still be held once Nathan is old enough.
Some of the radio controlled vehicles
Have you visited a Duck Race in your region or during travels?
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
After I wasn’t able to even post anything last sunday I am now nearly 100% back in the game. Most of the technical issues have been dealt with and now I just need to play some more with the hardware of my desktop PC so everything runs smooth once again.
So what do you expect of horrors in China? No, don’t worry I am not giving you a close up about Chinese public toilets but it is nearly as bad. Okay it is actually not that bad…this video is from a few years ago. Back then I was minding my own business at my in-laws apartment and went to the living room in order to watch some TV. As you can see something scared the hell out of me when I looked up from my phone and saw what is sitting on the sofa!
This post also is my very first one with a video. From here on I plan once in a while to upload some videos, nothing special really, just what I think might be funny.
Has anything scared you like my MIL before?
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
Crazy Chinese Family 