Tag Archives: WMAF

Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Our cute son

Sunday Shopping

February 12, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 32 Comments

After battling with a persistent flu for over a week it is time for a small blog post. I actually tried to write something before but no coherent thought was possible with constant headaches, running nose and coughing. Enough of my excuses and I present you here again some fun fact about Germany.

Sunday shopping sounds not too strange for most people. Well, Germany is a bit different. Here we have the “Ladenschlussgesetz/ Shop Closing Law” which determines when retail stores have to be closed. Sundays and public holidays is a dead zone in the cities, Monday through Saturday stores need to be closed before 6 AM and after 8 pm followed with the tricky December the 24th where shops needs to be closed already after 2pm. Sounds stupid and in fact the law was a bit changed in 2006 when the different German States got the power to decide themselves how the law is applied. Because of this the different States have different opening hour regulations. We live in Schleswig-Holstein where shops are allowed to be open at any given time from Monday till Saturday so we have it pretty good compared to conservative Bavarians who still follow the old Shop Closing Law.

Now coming to the Sunday Shopping. As Germany has a predominant Christian population and is one of those old creepy countries, work is by tradition and religion prohibited on Sundays. Okay this sounds a bit harsh, it is not prohibited but nothing is opened on Sundays so you better get all shopping done by Saturday. However cities are allowed to have this thing called Sunday Shopping which they may have up to four times a year. As they are so rare most cities try to make together with bigger shops some kind of event out of it. We had the first Sunday Shopping of the year on the 5th of February in my hometown and we decided to check it out. No not because we wanted to go shopping but to see what the event would be like.

sonn7 — Must have been cold wearing that!

In the market square was a small stage with live music, a fire to warm up and the volunteer fire department were presenting themselves in order to recruit for their youth division. There were also some artists and a fire show which we kind of missed each time it was on. One of the artist was walking on stilts with an interesting costume making her look like some kind of firebird/phoenix . Nathan was at first amazed by her but then he realised that she was just too tall so he decided that running away is the best option.

The reason why we missed the fire show was because we were busy eating cakes in a new cafe. This cafe just open recently with the great name “Layali Lebnan – Köstlichkeiten aus 1001 Nacht/ Delights of 1001 Nights”. As you might guess from the name it is not a German cafe and that is also why it is so great. The cakes and pastries were just amazing and so different compared what the standard bakeries here are offering. Even my mother who is always so annoying with food enjoyed it so it must be pretty good. I know that this cafe will be visited more often this year by us.

So that was it, our first Sunday Shopping (more like Sunday cake eating) in 2017. I actually do look forward to the following Sunday Shopping dates this year as they seem to be interesting with their special events and artists.

What are the opening hours in your country?

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Award

Winning the Liebster Award

February 1, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 15 Comments

Hello all, it is time for the Liebster Award! Not that I am a new blogger any longer with my nearly four years writing about my crazy mother-in-law but I think I am still considered a “small blogger” so it still fits.

Anna Sherchand from annasherchand.com nominated me for this Award. She is a fellow blogger who has already done some serious travels around the world and writes now about her experiences. She just started recently with blogging and in her blog posts you can see some of her amazing pictures.

Now what is The Liebster Award ?
“Liebster” is a German word meaning beloved or dearest. It is an online recognition in form of virtual award which started in 2011 passed on by bloggers to fellow bloggers for enjoying and valuing their work. The idea is to recognize the effort and give credit.

dresden21 — Dresden back in July of 2016

My Answers to Anna’s questions:

1.Are you an Introvert or Extrovert?

I am pretty much an Introvert. I prefer staying at home and I could go days without talking while feeling perfectly normal. This is probably due to my Finnish roots. There you can go on a full bus and you will only hear the engine, no one speaks!

How has that (answer to #1) changed the way you travel?

To be honest I never travelled on my own much. In my youth all my travels were basically either to my parent’s summer cottage in Finland or they happened due to swimming camps or competitions around Europe. In the past years I did some travelling with my wife to China and some European countries. In those we always preferred doing everything on our own and try to relax away from other people. Of course there were exceptions like when we had those terrible tourist group tours in China…

What is your favorite, unique travel experience? Did you plan it, or did it just happen?

I guess it is when we went to Prague last autumn. We did plan on going there but we didn’t decide on what to do there at all before arriving. Those three days were wonderful and we would love to go there again.
4. If attached, how do you stay at peace on the road? If not attached, how do you date on the road?

Haha, I would say that our time is usually pretty peaceful when going around. The only times when we might have some arguments it is always, always about the food!

food14 — The best food you find where no tourists usually go and only the locals know about

Where would you want to live the rest of your life and why?

This is really a hard question to answer and right now I really don’t know.

What are few of your travel tips to save money?

The best way is usually by avoiding to buy anything at or near tourist hot spots. Go a few streets further, food and drinks can be there in many countries easily half the price!

Are you planning on working 9-5 again or keep travelling until your money runs out?

Now as we have a family with our second child soon arriving we prefer saving up our money. We have our own business so theoretically we could go on travels whenever we want (we did have few travels last year) but we always have to consider that we pretty much don’t earn anything when abroad.

How much of your time is spent on writing new posts, versus promotion on social media?

I spent much more time on articles. All promotion I might do just happens when I feel like it and consists usually only some pictures or links to other bloggers.

What made you break the norm and become a traveler?

When we do travel it is because life is just too boring at home. Last year we went as a family to several cities in Germany, to China, Finland and last but not least to the Czech Republic. Sure we are not the biggest travelers around but I’d say that this is pretty okay.

What is your biggest fear?

That I fail to protect and help my family.

What 3 books changed your life positively?

Too many books to consider! I am a person who prefers reading whole “Epic Tales” consisting of many books. I’d say “The Lord of the Rings”, “Malazan Book of the Fallen”, and “Wheel of Time” have to be most important books that also changed some of my view towards the world.

room3 — Lord of the Rings, should read it again I guess

Now that I answered more or less successfully Anna’s questions I nominate the following blogs and hope they are able to accept them.

https://pinayindeutschland.wordpress.com/
https://ourchinesewedding.wordpress.com/
https://theberlinbook.wordpress.com/
https://bunnyandpandablog.wordpress.com/
https://justbluedutch.wordpress.com/

Your (11) Questions:

Why did you start blogging
How does blogging and connecting to other bloggers change/ help you?
What are your favorite topics to write about?
In which country do you see yourself living in ten years?
Couch or Sports?
A good Book or TV?
What would you do with 1 Million Euros (or Dollars, whatever you prefer…)
How long do you prepare for a blog post?
Your worst experience with blogging
What is your hobby with which you find some peace?
Last but not least: Would you ever dare to try Surströmming?

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award and you choose to accept it:

Display the award on your blog and write a post about the award.
Thank the person who nominated you and post a link to their blog. Tell the reader a little about your nominator.
Answer the 11 questions given to you by the blogger who nominated you.
Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award.
Give the nominees 11 questions to answer on their blog.
List these rules in your post.
Notify the nominees of the Liebster Award and ask if they would be happy to accept? If so, send them a link to your post.

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Our cute son, Travels

Getting Lost in Langzhong

January 29, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 19 Comments

Remember my blog post “The Time we actually travelled somewhere”? Back then I only mentioned the Jianmenguan Pass however we still had another destination afterwards. I guess I tried to forget about it as the bus trip (which already took 6 hours to the Jianmenguan Pass) did not improve while driving to our final destination. In fact it got worse as the driver got lost several times so the whole trip took instead of another 2 1/2 hours again around 6 hours.

lz8 — One of the countless of Buildings we visited in Langzhong

At late night we arrived in Langzhong and were hushed by the tour guide into the old town to our Traditional Inn. As we arrived so late they did not have any dinner left and nearly all restaurants had closed already as the Old Town is a tourist attraction and thus only opened during daytime. After searching for what felt an eternity we found one restaurant we could eat something. On the down side it was filled with drunken patrons, on the bright side they had food for us. The only memories I have from the first night in the room was that those old buildings certainly do not give you any rest as you hear everyone in the whole inn talking or walking around.

lz10 — From the towers in the Ancient Town you have a wonderful view around

Because we were part of a tourist group it meant also a very strict timetable. Wake up was at 5:30 AM and by 6 AM we had to be done with breakfast and run around the ancient town of Langzhong. The place looks really amazing and it is full of history but running from one temple to the next ancient school to the next ancient tomb was very exhausting. Besides exhausting it was also very repetitive as after a while all those buildings were looking the same. Because of the strict timetable we had to rush to every location and we got lost several times as we could not keep up the speed together with Nathan. One good thing though was that the food was pretty decent unlike at the horrifying experience from the City Tour Extreme a year later.

Langzhong is a very interesting city as the ancient town is well-preserved and has an over 2.300 years of history. One of the main points I still remember is the ZhangFei Temple which is also where his tomb is located. On a funny side note I have to mention that MIL did not dare to enter the temple as she thinks that God will punish her for that. No idea where she got that from but in all our travels she never entered a temple due to her fear. Nathan became quickly an attraction on his own when we walked around wearing his monk costume. At one point there were several dozen people following him and taking pictures with him. Needless to say that MIL tried to be in each picture as well…

lz6 — See, take picture of me and also the little guy in my arms

Our tour group allowed to have some little “freedom” by being able to select certain extras to visit. One of those extras was a performance on the other side of the river. It was a really wonderful perfomance and the only negative thing was the ridiculous amount of selfie-sticks being used to take pictures and videos. Due to that I had too often a huge tablet right in front of me. I tried my best but somehow I could not find the name of the performance online nor does my wife remembers the name any longer. All I know is that it is located right next to the Jinping Hill which is on its own already a great location to visit. We had a strict timetable when visiting the Jinping Hill and kind of got lost half way through. Especially carrying Nathan’s small pram up and down countless of stairs was a bit hard.

I can only recommend to visit Langzhong but without a tour group! Two to three days would be best as there is a lot to see already in the ancient town and in the surrounding area. The Jinping Hill alone can easily consume up to six hours when trying to really “see” everything there. What I can not recommend is the vinegar museum as it is just a tourist trap and of course everyone in my tour group bought plenty of vinegar in the store located at the exit of the museum.