Tag Archives: Crazy Chinese

Could you please take something with you?

March 18, 2018 CrazyChineseFamily 24 Comments

Our holiday in China is fast approaching and with it the requests from the Chinese family. Each time we go to China some of my wife’s family members got some interesting ideas/ requests. Usually it is something very simple such as certain food supplements, medications, clothes or small electric gadgets. Usually my in-laws are not planning to renovate and move into a new apartment as well. While as Granny, Aunty and the rest of the crazy bunch just asked for small things my dear Chinese mother-in-law has some other ambitions.

The first few requests were not even that bad as they were small items such as few tubes of silicone for the bath or checking for light switches. But MIL wouldn’t be herself without escalating rather quickly by asking us to bring kitchen cabinets, sofas, a toilet, flooring and wallpaper with us. Yes you read right those are all things she believes we can just take with us when flying to China. Some similar ideas she had already back in Finland when visiting us for three months. After my wife told her that it is impossible she told us that we could just have them on our lap when flying…I am serious, she really said it! Who in their right mind would ask others to take a kitchen sink from Germany to China?

Could you please take a microwave with you?

Up to this point MIL does not understand why we won’t do such a thing. She is asking all of this because she is 100% certain that all these things are so much cheaper in Germany than in China. Needless to say she was shocked to hear the prices we told her and she accused her daughter to check only in expensive shops. I really do not know how she can still asks us to take these items with us after two months of my wife denying any of those requests. We can handle some small items but what she has on her mind is just ridiculous.

Such Ikea items she wants us to take to China though they have Ikea as well there…

For some reason she also got some weird ideas about how the apartment should be equipped. She really wanted us to get some high-tech toilet such they have in Japan and take it all the way to China. Yes such toilet is incredible expensive and huge. We convinced her that we would not buy such a thing and that it is a real waste of money. She listened and did not ask us about the toilet any longer and simply bought one in China. Somehow I am scared to think how the new apartment will look like when it is finished next year. All I know thus far is that Nathan will have tons of fun pushing all those buttons when going to the toilet.

Has anyone ever asked you to take some stuff with when flying to another country?

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Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Crazy Germans

The Annual Airport Festival

October 30, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 20 Comments

In the beginning of September (so half a century ago according to my blogging schedule) we went to the annual airport festival here in my hometown. Yes my little town has an airport, okay it might be more a very small airfield and not so much of an airport. Only small aircrafts can start and land there so there is no issue of noise complaints ever. I was actually checking out just now what kind of airfield it is but the Germans surely got their own laws and regulations which do not even translate into English so I won’t bother you with that! This airfield was a military airport back in WWII and after the war the airport was reduced in size to give way for a new city district which was built for the thousands of refugees arriving here such as my dad back in the day.

Enough of the history and categorization of this so-called airport and let’s get back to the festival. Though I have lived rather long here already before moving to Finland I had never visited this festival. I do not even know for how long this festival exists already except that it must be going on now for at least 8 years. I know that because back then my parents visited the festival as they have a friend, who is flying a glider, invited them. As this festival was right between the time MIL had left us to return to China and my parents return from their 4 month-long holiday we took this opportunity for some family time. From our home it is only 10 minutes by bicycle to the airport which made it very convenient for us to go there on both festival days. As you can imagine it was a very confusing but also exciting event for a 2 1/2-year-old boy! When he saw the first helicopter flying over our heads he went crazy, not as in crazy as everyday MIL, but happily crazy.

flug5 — One of the bit older gliders at the festival

On one side of the airfield were several food stalls and the tents of the different companies offering flights in either helicopters, gliders, gyrocopter, historical planes or different light aircrafts. You could also sign up for some parachute jumping but that is not really my thing as I might have some little fear of heights. Most surprisingly for us was that two of our friends were also at the festival and were just preparing for their parachute jump! I bet that the girl would have not jumped if she would have known back then that she was already in her first month of pregnancy. They also provided tons of entertainment for kids with several amusement rides, jumping castles and also a little track for quad driving (small quads with not so much power). In retrospect the quad driving was probably more intended to give the dads some fun while pretending to take care of their kids sitting in front of them.

flug3 — #Nathancuty loves to drive the Suzuki

The whole festival was very interesting as you could see all kind of different planes and other flying vehicles. They also had the Antonow AN-2 flying around which is the biggest operational single-engine biplane. We had plans to take a little tour with a light aircraft but the waiting list was a bit too much for us with its 2-3 hours of waiting time. So in order to let Nathan enjoy his time there we let him have some rounds in the amusement rides. We had the before-mentioned quad ride for him but he clearly did not really care about as he kind of looked depressed in the pictures.

For us it was a nice experience to go to this airport festival. We learned a few things about the different planes, Nathan had lots of fun, it is nearby and best of all the entrance is for free. Next year we will definitely go again and then we will sign up early enough for a flight in one of the planes!

I have never seen a gyrocopter before in my life

Have you visited something like an airport festival 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

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Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Travels

At the Guangyun Lake

June 26, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 19 Comments

We have been in Xi’an multiple times over the past years but somehow each time we find something new which we haven’t visited yet. One of those things was this time the site of the Xi’an International Horticultural Exposition 2011. Back then in 2011 we were also in China together with my parents and even had tickets for the Expo. However it was so hot during that time that we decided to skip it. Years passed by and we forgot about the expo and the still existing park. This all changed when my wife’s friend invited us to go there for the afternoon. I was ready for some intense walking around the huge area and taking tons of pictures. Yes I was ready but it all didn’t work out as I had hoped for.

Before we went to that huge park we were invited by the whole crazy family to go eating some buffet at the Shangri-La Hotel in Xi’an. Don’t understand me wrong it was pretty decent food there but nothing too extraordinary that I would write about it. Only three things are really worth mentioning from that time at the buffet. First my crazy Chinese mother-in-law was chasing behind Nathan to feed him around the playground next to the restaurant for several rounds. Not only once but multiple time. Second crazy Chinese Grandma ate two plates full of raw seafood. She never ate raw seafood before in her entire life and ended up few hours later very very sick at home. Third was a family with two children sitting next to us. The mother was one of the bit larger people out there, not that it would be worth mentioning at all but she had a very interesting taste in food. Each time she went to get some more sushi she took a tube of wasabi and ate it all, again and again and again. Okay that is all I have to mention about the buffet except of course that it took nearly three hours as all family members needed few breaks in order to eat as much as humanly possible. Due to this our trip to the Expo Site was delayed a lot.

hort9 — I couldn’t figure out how to reach that hut

My wife’s friend picked us up from the hotel a little after 3pm. With her she had her husband, baby, mother-in-law and nanny because you know it takes at least four people to handle a child in China. Once we arrived at the Expo we quickly realized that it would be impossible for us to cover the whole area as it was first of all too late and the area just too huge. We got ourselves tickets for the electrical mini busses driving through the main area. The bad thing was though that those busses only operated till 5pm meaning we had less than 1 1/2 hours time to cover at least a couple of things before leaving. While driving around you could see that they still put up a lot of effort to preserve the park however many sights were already closed and were slowly crumbling apart.

Our first stop was at a giant hall full of tropical and desert plants. The building was divided of course into two sections where the lower part was for the tropical plants and the upper area for the desert plants. It was very well made and I was surprised how on earth they got those giant trees there. Especially the rainforest part was interesting as it had all kinds of beautiful flowers around. Here I wanted to take many more pictures but the high humidity wasn’t the best friend of my camera lenses…

After this we went to the animal section. I must say it was very sad to see how the animals were kept and I did not even take pictures of it. All in all it just looked terrible. The only part of the animals section where I took pictures was the peacock enclosure. It was full of male peacocks and upon entering the staff gave us dried corn to feed the birds. Those peacocks certainly went crazy showing off and we were surrounded by an ocean of colourful feathers. In fact there were so many that my wife got scared, okay she gets scared by all animals when they get too close…

Sad to say but those were the only two locations we managed to visit. While driving around the park we saw so many locations with certain themes such as European Village, Chinese Monuments etc. All over the park they had those Wedding Photoshoots and their staff carrying tons of different dresses around. We also saw the Chang’an Tower(长安塔) which is one of the main sights of the park. However we could not enter it due to one important reason, it never passed the safety test and thus was and perhaps will never be opened to the public…