Munich Love

 So I have a whole other blog dedicated to the summer we spent here in Munich, and it's the first time we've been back since that summer. I always carry fond memories of Munich and we've had so many good times here, but the feeling of being here is unlike any other. Even with the cold, short days, Munich is one of my favorite places on the planet.

Waiting in the airport

We set off from Shenzhen on Saturday after a long day of packing and waiting. Our ferry was at 3:30 pm, and our flight wasn't until 8pm, so we had some time to eat and wander the airport. We settled into a pizza restaurant for at least an hour, but Paul was cranky due to no nap and I was anxious about traveling so it wasn't too relaxing for me.

First Christmas Market!

We made it to the gate, and our plane was late to Beijing, and Paul had finally fallen asleep. After waiting for an hour and a half we were finally on our way. Unfortunately we were flying Air China, which is no Luftansa. The seats were cramped, the food was bad, and the flight attendants were less than friendly. Things got worse on the next flight where Paul couldn't stretch out between seats, and there were so few entertainment options that Paul was bored very easily. It was ten hours of uncomfortable, sleepless travel. I was thankful to arrive at 5am on Sunday.

We breezed through customs, and Ron and Angie were waiting for us just beyond that wall. Paul was so happy to see them and I think they were equally happy. :) We had some time to kill before checking into our house, so we sat and had coffee at the airport then rented a car and set off.

We finally checked in and had some bakery goods. We were all exhausted from our travel, but determined to stay awake, so we showered, unpacked and tried to find an open grocery store. But since nothing is open on Sundays, we decided to go back to the airport to use the Edeka that was open there. The airport actually isn't a bad place to hang out, it has lots of good restaurants and this time of year it has a Christmas market in the big plaza in the middle. It was actually kind of fun wandering around. :) Funny to come to Europe and find everything so much cheaper. Western goods in China come at a high price, so we're happy to spend a euro or two on cheese, and even less on beer.

As we were driving home, we saw a neighborhood Christmas market, so we walked over to check it out. It was a community one, so it was held in the gymnasium of a community center. It was cool! Lots of homemade stuff, Donnie and I picked out some original ornaments to put on our tree here, and Ron and Angie did the same. We ended the trip with big bowls of goulasch and wine. It was perfect. I smile just remembering how nice it was to have warm hot food, that was soooo delicious.

After that we crashed early, tired from travel and settling in. I think Donnie and I went to bed at 6pm and Ron, Angie and Paul made it to 8pm.

I woke up at 3 am, and I could've laid in bed much longer, but I was starving so we got up and figured out to make coffee followed by breakfast. Donnie had the idea to drive out to see snow since it was a clear day, and there's no snow here in Munich proper. So we piled in the car and set off for the mountains. It took about an hour and a half, but eventually we found a field of powdery snow for Paul to play in.

We'd been talking about snow for the past month, so he was excited to play in his first snow. We geared him up, and he had a blast walking around, falling down, making snow angels, kicking the snow and sinking in the deep parts. We only played for a short time, but I know there will be more snow in our future. :)

From there we took care of our grocery shopping needs, relishing in the ease of understanding what you were buying. And how yummy everything looks. We got home and Donnie would not rest until he got a Christmas tree. He and Ron went to get it while Angie and I made dinner. They brought home a cute, fresh tree which we decorated with lights and the few ornaments we have so far. It makes the place seem so much homier. :)

Today Matt arrives and I'm so excited for him and more family to get here. We're going to plan some fun things to do in the coming days so he doesn't get restless. He wore me out in Hawaii, I'm sure he'll do the same here. But I love it, and he hasn't been back to Germany since he was 16, so I don't blame him. I just want him to be here already!! :)

Love to all and I wish you were here.

Countdown to Munich

 So begins the hourly countdown to our flight to Munich, just 35 hours until we are on a plane to a fun-filled family Christmas break. Luckily, this week has gone a little bit faster even than last week, so I've not had time to sit and wait or even pack!

Last weekend was an active one, and we did quite a bit of exploring around Shenzhen Bay Park. On Saturday we relaxed for a while before walking down to All City Mall. We'd seen some billboards with Thomas the Train on them, so we thought it would be fun to go check it out. Maybe Paul could see or play with Thomas. Thomas was there, but only in a static display that we couldn't even touch. It was frustrating, especially for Paul because all he wanted to do was climb up on Thomas. So after wandering the mall for a while, we headed home early.

Sunday was another slow start, but we did pull ourselves together to make an Ikea/Metro run. It's always fun to have breakfast and then browse Ikea before the crowds get too intense. Paul napped through most of it, so when we got home, he was ready to go play. So we geared up to go back to the park, this time planning a different route to find an easier way in.  We found a different way in, and ended up walking through the park for 4 hours. We were looking for easier access, but we never ended up finding it. I think I've got it figured out now, but it was a long day.


This week at school has been breezy, and I'm wrapping up my fourth unit today. We did take a field trip on Thursday all day to a theme park called Window of the World. I went with the other 12 year old teachers and 71 students. It was a really fun day! I ended up wandering around with Grant and Zack and we had a great time pretending to be giants, taking goofy pictures and of course monitoring kids. The park is made up of all kinds of monuments from around the world. They are all shrunk down in some way, on different scales. So we wandered through Venice on a scale 5 times smaller than usual. We went to Ankor Wat on a mini-version. We saw Manhattan, the White House, the Capital, all in the span of 5 minutes. They had a section indoors called the Alps. It had a huge ice skating rink, and a skiing hill! It was more fun than I thought to see all of the places I'd visited around the world in one place. :) Grant and I were competing to see who had been to more of the monuments, so I counted them. I'd been to 18 of them, and since Grant hasn't spent much time in Europe, I won. Hehe.

Then last night was quiz night, and we've been on a bit of a streak. I think we've placed either 1st, 2nd or 3rd for the past month, which is nice because you win a prize that you can use to buy food or drink at the next quiz night. It doesn't really matter to me if we win or not. I enjoy the socializing with Zack and Honey and seeing everybody relax outside of work. It is pretty competitive though, and can get kind of intense. I think we'll host one in the new year.

Today is a short day, and we're planning on going to buy ferry tickets, then getting haircuts and lunch before we head home to Paul to pack and prepare for our trip. I know time goes by at a constant rate, but if I could just speed it up a bit...:) We'll see Ron and Angie on Sunday, and Matt on Tuesday and then Mom and Andie soon after that on Christmas. :) My heart soars when I think of it.

This blog will be closing soon, I'll start another for 2014, but there are still some adventures to be had in 2013. So stay tuned and love to all.

Some US landmarks

Indoor skiing?!!

Manhattan, Rio, Mexico, Nazca Lines, Easter Island: All in one shot!

Giant Jessica !

Finally December!

Merry Christmas, baby!

I feel like I've been staring at my desk calendar, willing the days to go faster, and now it's finally December! Hooray! That means a week from today I will be home packing for a flight to Munich to join family in a celebration that is sure to be one of the best ever. I think that's why time is going so slowly. Last week was dreadfully slow, this week, a little less so, but still NOT FAST ENOUGH!! :)

Yay, food!

I posted last week about thanks, but I didn't talk about how we celebrated our first Thanksgiving in China. I was feeling pretty glum about the whole thing, and we didn't even really have any plans to fix dinner. Our cooking abilities are limited because of our lack of an oven. So we picked up some deli meat turkey, sliced thickly, some broccoli, potatoes and bread and headed home to make our own meal. It actually turned out pretty well. A simple meal, but we all talked about what we were thankful for and enjoyed it as a family. Easiest clean up afterwards ever for a Thanksgiving dinner. Then we settled in to watch a movie and relax together. Nothing too extravagant, but it made me feel better, and I was glad to carry on the tradition for Paul. Also, it meant we had leftover turkey to eat for a few days, just like always. :)

LCC

Luohu border crossing

Usually we will avoid shopping the weekend after Thanksgiving for obvious reasons, but since going to the store always feels like a Black Friday rush, we decided to get a jump on Christmas shopping the Saturday following Thanksgiving. We started with a quick trip to Dafen (it took 1.5 hrs to get there, and I think we only stayed 45 min). Then took the metro down to the last stop at Luohu.

He was relaxed, not us.

Luohu is a border crossing into HK, so it's were all the HKers come to shop in Shenzhen since it's cheaper than in HK. Kinda like the Canadians crossing to the US, or a Mexican-US border crossing. Right when you cross into Shenzhen, there is a huge shopping center called the LCC (Luohu Commercial Center). It's crazy. It houses five floors of booths that sell anything from clothing to toys to electronics. Pretty much everything is knockoffs, but some of them are so good you can't tell the difference! (Don't worry family, I won't scam you with a fake ;))  The madness begins right as you walk in, people start yelling at you to buy whatever they are selling. Then when you finally decide to enter a shop and purchase something, you have to embark on an epic bargaining venture. I read that they will start their bartering at 4 times the actual worth of the object, so it takes a pretty solid will to fight it down to a price you're willing to pay. We got better at it as the day progressed. We ate at a delish international restaurant, then headed back home. It was an exhausting day, but felt good to try something new. And we had finished a lot of our shopping.

Pretty awesome

Sunday we got up and decided we were going to find the elusive Shenzhen Bay. We'd seen it from the ferry, and everybody talks about this wonderful running/biking path and park along the water. It's supposed to stretch for 10k, and be super nice. With limited map help, we set out to walk there and found it was only 2.5k from our door. So we went for an easy jog along the water, stopped to play and have a snack, then Donnie wanted to go back to Luohu. We managed to flag a cab down and spent the afternoon in Luohu again! Not my first choice of Sunday activities, but we managed to finish the rest of our Chinese-bought presents.

Gotta catch up with them!

Silly guys, ;)

The rest of this week has been uneventful, except for two things. One, we won again at quiz night! So now we have a stack of prizes to use next week at the quiz. And two, Paul had his Winter Concert at school today. Our director let us leave to go watch it, which I was nervous about because Paul has been a little moody this week. I was afraid he would cry straight through it. When he went up for the 3's concert, he was spunky and funny with his friend Connor, but he lost it in the group finale. He cried the entire song. I felt bad for him and when it was over comforted him, but I knew he wouldn't last the rest of the day at school. So luckily our ayi, Amy came to pick him up and took him home for a nap. Hopefully he's in better spirits when I get home today.

Paul and Connor

Other than that, I hope this week goes by super fast and I will try to post before we leave, but if not, the next post might be from Germany! :)

Love to all.