Tag Archives: Schleswig-Holstein

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Germans

Sunday Shopping and Duck Race

12 Comments

Today we had one of the few Sunday Shopping days in which the city is opened on a holy Sunday. Last year I actually wrote about this so you can find in this article more information about this stupid situation here in Germany and why there are barely any people around on Sundays. This Sunday was also a bit special as we had the yearly Duck Race in the city once again (here the article about it from 2015), we had some Street Food gathering going on and a Classic Car Meeting as well.

All the ducks shortly before the start

This year we skipped the Duck Race and I only took few pictures before the start. It is not because we have no interest in watching it but we have a little puppy who needs to get out around 3pm each day and that is also the time the race would start. We had surprisingly good weather with a lot of sunshine unlike the entire last week which had only storms for us.  I would love to tell more about the Street Food gathering but we tried to not get too close to it as it would have certainly ruined our wallets and give us some extra pounds. The only part where my wife was getting weak was the stand with Japanese styled Crêpes but thankfully the waiting line was so absurdly long that she gave up on it.

The Japanese stand

For me the highlight was the Classic Car meeting. The local club has several meetings each year but somehow I have never visited one. Always something happened such as holidays, too much rain or simply no energy to leave the apartment. It was really interesting to see cars from the last 70 years gathered here. As we are in Germany there were mostly only German brands such as Opel, Mercedes, BMW, Audi (Auto Union) and so on but there were also few US brands, British and French. My brother always wants to purchase a classic car but in the end it is just too much work to maintain it properly and you need also a safe garage as those cars can be really expensive.

Lovely old Mercedes

This Sunday was finally a day to relax a bit. Funny enough even though we had the Sunday Shopping day we only went around the city to watch all the interesting events rather than going to any shop at all. Tomorrow and the day after we have some big things happening but more about it in next weeks blog post/ some hints on Social Media the next days.

Have you visited a Classic Car meeting?

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 there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.instagram.com/Crazychinesefamily

Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Our cute son

Family Gathering

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!

Do you have family gatherings?

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, Mom in Law, Travels

A Day at the Beach

18 Comments

Last week I announced that I would be getting more active with blogging again and I kind of regret it already. No not that I hate blogging but I discovered that I have too much material to work with. Yes, you can actually have too much. For one my dear beloved Chinese mother-in-law is giving nearly daily new material to write about. However she is just the tip of the iceberg as I have “postponed” so many other things over the past two years. Only the small trips and craziness in China is already overwhelming me! So this post is about one of our little tours from last summer when MIL was still with us in Germany.

milgone3
So much sand

What image do you have when you think about a beach? I’d say it is with clear blue water and white sand. All over the world the beaches are different as I especially noticed when we had our holiday in Rhodes where the beach was a stony hell with each step without shoes was pure torment. Last summer we went to a beach nearby my hometown, to Sankt Peter-Ording.  It is a very popular seaside spa (they have their own sulphur spring!) and is a municipality of the district Nordfriesland in my home state Schleswig-Holstein.  That beach is a bit different from any I have ever visited before as you can see in the pictures. This is because it is a Intertidal Zone, the entire North Sea coast of Germany is called Wadden Sea (including part of the Netherlands and Danmark). Twice a day the ocean decides that it fun to retreat and you can do some great mudflat hiking.

spo1
Yep, you can swim there

Anyhow the beach at Sankt Peter-Ording is also easy to reach by car as it has Germany’s only beach parking lot. So you just drive there and park you car at the beach. When we were at the beach there was currently the low tide which meant that we had to walk still for 20 min till we reached the ocean.  MIL and my wife were amazed as they had never seen something like that nor imagined. Nathan was another story though as he was so afraid of getting his feet dirty in the mud (yes he is one picky little fellow). He also didn’t really trust the shallow waters which were filled with shrimps and crabs. The entire time he wanted to be carried except of course when we wanted to leave. Suddenly he wanted to play around and not leave anymore, what should I say – kids.

spo3
A pile of…I don’t know

Though we were only there for one hour we had a great time. There is just so much fun you can have, especially with kids, as there are small animals everywhere. I still remember how I “hunted” down a crab the size of a golf ball and proudly presented it to my wife. It took a lot of effort and pain and in that moment a small boy passed by showing off his crabzilla. That beast was nearly as big as a dining plate! I wonder if he still has all his fingers…

spo4
That all is usually covered by water

Besides hunting down crabs I also tried to catch some shrimps but that was a bit harder even though there were thousands of them in the shallow waters. In the end I decided against catching any more crabs or shrimps and set them all free because I was fearing that MIL was making some sudden dinner plans involving those poor little creatures. As you might remember from this blog post I was not too happy once we got home as MIL somehow had managed to drag in half the beach in the car. That was some serious vacuum cleaning the next day I tell you that.

spo2
Some of the stilt houses

In case you ever have a trip to Germany and are for some weird reason in the North I recommend to check out the Wadden Sea. It is just incredible what Nature is doing and to see with you own eyes how the water retreats beyond eyesight. Where to witness that spectacle is all up to you as it is magical at any spot at the Wadden Sea.

What interesting beaches have you visited?

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/