Before I started my whole traveling around the world over a year ago, I thought by the time Christmas came up and I wouldn't be able to be together with my family in Germany, homesickness would hit me hard. Like laying-on-my-bed-crying-hard. But I have to admit, and I know that my mom will not misunderstand me at this point, that spending Christmas away from home is not bringing up sad feelings in me at all. It's again more of an adventure to be able to experience how people all over the world spend those special days. And me being part of their celebration for once. So the only thing I happened to really miss knowing Christmas is coming up was, for the second year, to grab my mom and best friend by the hand for a nice late afternoon stroll over one of our various Christmas markets, sipping punch and munching on some candied almonds. But you better watch out, after my 2 year's rehab I will be more than ready to hit like EVERY SINGLE market that's out there 2014. No kidding.
Let's say I already expected Christmas in China to be really different to the point of non existent. I mean, first of all, the whole pre-christmas celebrations, cookie backing, candle lighting, decorating, music and simply the emotion was completely lacking. Though I, for my part, took care of the cookie baking ;-) and as I, as my role of a Cultural Ambassador, wanted Rex and Amy to experience the feeling and excitement that I as a kid (and actually still feel) felt with Christmas coming up. So I made both of them an advent calendar, but being a responsible big sister I chose to not ask chocolate or candy for help. Instead, I drew both a huge santa head and a snowman, with 24 circled numbers, on which the kids were supposed to glue a cotton ball on for every day that passed, so that by the time Christmas Eve arrived, both Santa's beard and the Snowman's body would be soft and fluffy all over. The kids were estatic - and with them myself :-) I kept spreading the joy of Christmas by singing songs all day with our Ayi and the kids joining in at some point. But unexpectedly, one day before Amy's 5th birthday during dinner of Dec, 19th, my hostparents informed me that, the next day (wow, that's what I call Chinese notice in advance!) they would be heading out to Macau for 8 days to enjoy their holidays together with the kids and 2 befriend families. Which left me and the Filipina Ayi alone in the house for over a week. And for Christmas. So all my hope of maybe getting my hostfamily to have a nice time together at Christmas with maybe a meal outside was gone within seconds. But hey, I wouldn't be Ronja not making the best out of the situation. So I used my unexpected days off to see my friends, hunt down the Chinese pre christmas bargains and bake even more cookies. The essential part about Christmas are the cookies, folk, I'm serious! So by the time Christmas Eve came up and all of my friends, as all Chinese, turned out to be working over the holidays, I took our Ayi out to eat a nice lunch together with my best Chinese friend Eleven during her lunch break, and afterwards headed to the Global Center to go ice skating. I had a great time both skating and watching the Chinese trying to keep their balance on the ice. Did I mention before that the skill of balance is not really distinct in Chinese genes!? So I did have reason to be amuse. On the contrary our Ayi, who stood outside the skate ring for a whole hour being too scared to go on the ice and give the fun a try. Oh well, her problem. And my wallet's. But it was Christmas, and I didn't want her lack of adventurousness screw my day. Haha, see how much I already adapted to Chinese habbits?! I am becoming selfish :-)
So for our dinner I prepared handmade jiaozi aka Chinese dumplings or like we Swabians like to say Mauldäschle. They turned out great and I enjoyed them both boiled and fried. Yes you heard correct, I enjoyed them. Our Ayi had previously, even though she knew I prepared those dumplings (may I just add that the whole process took me 2 hours), bought herself a huge piece of pizza at the mall that she was knocking off that evening. At that point I was truly dissapointed by her. But it was still Christmas Eve. And me not in the mood to start an argument. So while she got ready to go out that night (which left me guarding the house), I headed to the nearest supermarket to get some cookies to put out for Santa in case of a sudden hunger attack resulting from his long travels. Together with a glass of milk and a little note advising him to share the treat with his reindeer, I set up the tray next to Amy's, Rex' and my own stocking next to the fire place. After sending a picture of the scene to my hostmom, whose response was a audio message of the kids singing me a christmas song I taught them (how something seemingly small like that can so make someone's day!), I headed for a Skype call with my mom and brother back home. That night, as nobody was home but me, and Santa chose the 3 hours I slept to visit, I turned the volume of our TV up as high as possible and literally danced my ass off to Jason Derulo's Talk Dirty. Thanks for keeping me company that night, Jason!
Thanks to the lack of sleep that night, I spend most of Christmas day sleeping. As I managed to get up from the couch by early afternoon, I found filled stockings and a note from Santa together with some left over cookie crumbs. He must have enjoyed his midnight snack of Chinese banana flavored oreo cookies :-) Apparently we all had been good girls and boys that year as a look at the stockings assumed. Santa brought me a beautiful lucky-cat-bracelet and a much needed calendar for the upcoming year. How come Santa keeps guessing my wishes?! The kids' stockings were also filled with gifts, which I had to immediately share with the two munchkins via Becky's wechat. So for Christmas day I kept it low, tried to fight my bad Christmas eating habbits for a day and saw my grandma and grandaunt via my brother's chat. Second day of Christmas brought me Mexican food for dinner, as I met with a new found friend from Michigan who treated me to some good food after a nice stroll and chat in English at a nearby mall. Oh and just FYI, by the evening of the 27th, out Ayi was still not back from her going-out from Christmas Eve. This lady does know how to party and sleep at people's houses that she just met that night. No offense though. Let me just add she has two little boys at home. But hey, no offense.
So after the holidays were over, I wasn't quite sure of what to think about my Christmas in China. Good that I didn't have any expectations, those would have just been totally screwed anyway. But asking myself if I spent the holy days with a happy spirit, I found myself confirming that I did enjoy my Christmas in China - even though spending it in a way that was knew to me til that point. But in the end it all comes down to what you make out of your day and I for my part did have a nice time. Though I do not at all feel bad saying that I'm glad to know that, for next years Christmas, I will be back in Germany, spending my favorite holiday of the year together with my family and people that truly care as much about me as I care about them.

So after I kept walking past the Great Wall Tour Offer of my hostel for 3 days, thinking everyday 'should I go or the hell Ronja, Beijing is already freezing enough - you don't have to exaggerate', I went with thought two and decided that during my planned studies, for which I will have to come back to Beijing anyway, I would have plenty of time to enjoy the Wall on a nice warm day. So instead of heading to the Wall I decided the night before to hook up my Chinese roommate (who spent 9 days straight in the room sleeping without even seeing a square meter of a city she has never been to), who happened to be the owner of a jewelry shop back in her hometown, to accompany me for the day, but especially to Beijing's Ancient Jewelry Market called Panjiayuan. She was great company to find good bargains and was more than succesful saving me money. A thank you to Sarah at this point!
After we both bad plenty of jewelry in our bags (and had been freezing enough as this market was outside at an authentic old market place), we headed to Wangfujing, Beijing's biggest and most well-known shopping mile, having a stroll all the way up, carrying a candied fruit stick with us to not starve on the way *twinkle* to the same delicious hotpot place I went together with my Chinese teacher the day before. I just had too good of a time there to not not come back. So this time, instead of a mala tang aka spicy soup, I tried the gali tang aka curry soup and have to say it was waaay better than the day's before. Man, I could have taken a swim in that curry soup! As Sarah is a vegetarian, we ended up ordering tons of veggies to dump into our own little bubbling pots. DELICIOUS. I could have been sitting there all day. I think I could have even put a straw into my soup to take sips of it. So this lunch totally hit the spot and was exactly what I needed after hours outside in the freezing cold weather in Beijing. So after treating myself to some new pants at Forever 21 - can you believe it, there is a Forever 21 in Beijing/I was in heaven! - we headed back down the shopping street, spending about an hour at a foreign language book store where I was heading for the English books to read to my hostkids and Sarah for the French books to help her improve both the language and the knowledge of the country. After buying a zodiac necklace for our Chinese Ayi in another store we were ready to try some Beijing street eats at Wangfujing's Night Market. So we sipped on some delcious and warm yogurt, and snacked on potatoes on a stick, fried ice cream, sesame candy and a pancake like wrap. Getting darker and darker and even more freezing outside, we finally headed back to the hostel, where I already packed all my luggage in the morning, to be able to head out to the airport he same night. As my flight back home to Chengdu was scheduled for early morning on Tuesday, and as that early there was no metro nor Airport Shuttle running (and I did not want to spend ¥100 on a cab) I decided to just spend the night at the airport. I had about 10 hours which gave me plenty of time to chat to other travelers and meet some cool people as well as some weirdoes. At least it was never boring which helped keeping me awake that night. The last 5 hours I spend together with a Chinese student traveling home over winter break of his university in America. Staying in Detroit we immediately had a lot to share (for those who don't know, I stayed in Detroit area for almost 2 months about 4 years ago over the summer) and I enjoyed his company. So when after 10 hours waiting my flight's boarding got announced, I was more than ready to take a nap in the plane. Though it was not quite as enjoyable as I thought, as after getting sick in Beijing, I was fevering on the airplane sweating in my seat like a pig and praying for that flight to finally be over. I was just happy when I saw our driver waiting outside for my arrival and who made sure me and my luggage got home safely. Amy was super excited about me coming home and Rex' eyes showed the same sort of relief about having me back. Both kids would not let of my side that day and though I felt like crab still having a fever, I was also more than happy to be back with my two kids and spend the day together with Rex and Amy, sharing stories of Bejing and enjoying each others company again.
If this trip made one thing clear, then for sure that I will be missing those little munchkins like crazy once I will make my way back to Germany. So I better get back up there giving my two kids some company :-)

...like i said. At first. But this Polish guy's snoring was just too extreme to not get waken up by the sound. And once awake I noticed how unbearable hot the whole room was, so there was no way I could go back to sleep. So I took a nice walk through what felt to me a crazy cold hostel and bugged some other people by leaving audio wechat messages at 3am at night. So my appology goes out to all of them that woke up by me laughing on the staircase. I know, unacceptable behavior. So after the hours passed and the day reached a reasonable time to get changed and washed (6am did it) I headed downstairs in the main hang out area - btw next to the staircase the only place with bad functioning wifi - and had a chat with other visitors before heading out to spend the day with my Chinese teacher. As I mentioned before, she lives in Beijing giving me class over the internet, but coming originally from Chengdu, she is great in giving me ideas for where to go, what to see and can relate to places I mention in stories. As I never met her in person, I was more than excited to finally meet her that day. We met at Tiananmen to start our day with the Forbidden City. It was great to finally meet her and just walk and talk around like sisters. She was great company, also giving me input on the Forbidden City's history and interesting facts. The whole place is massive and I immediately felt humble. Though the other tourists - mostly Chinese - must have felt like bosses, trying to literally fight their way to the front of a huge crowd infront of every single building's inside. Nuts. And their pictures could not have even been good, as for all the pushing and boxing, the whole crowd was constantly moving from left to right, screwing almost every single one of my pictures. Oh well, memories are worth a lot more than pictures, right?
After walking through this gigantic place and looking at Cixi's (the wife that actually had the power over the whole imperial while her son was still pretty young) breast measurer - literally, this lady hired women from all over the country to give their breast milk, so that she herself could bath in it and even drink it every single day. People say that's why her skin was so beautiful. But not any woman's milk could be used. They had to have delivered to babies and finally their breast must have had a specific size. And that's where this measurer comes into place. In my opinion it was rediculously huge and I can't imagine that there were enough women with boobs that large. But somehow it must have worked.
So having seen every bit of the Palace, we made our way out to find a place to eat lunch. While walking, Emma treated me to a typical Beijing street eat - called tanghulu aka candied fruits on a stick (to be added: extremely bad for health and teeth). But delicious! So after not being able to feel my toes again we ended up in a huge mall (this feeling of slowly heating up again is priceless!) eating hotpot. But people, now listen closely. This place HITS THE SPOT! Everybody has his/her own little pot infront of him/her and cooks up his veggies and meat by himself. Totally great. And their signature sauce to drench your food in after it's been cooked was just to swim in! Oh this was soo good! I think we ate for 2 hours, but this is the whole point about eating hotpot. You eat a bit, then you talk, then you eat a bit,... I love this. So you could easily eat hotpot the whole day :D so afterwards we made our way walking down the biggest shopping street back to Tiananmen Square where we watched the flag pulling ceremony. Neat thing. While we were waiting at the Square for about 40min before though, there was literally every minute another Chinese person coming up to us asking for a picture with me. It was hilarious! Emma said we should have better put up a table and charged ¥1 for a shot. Man, that would have been quite some money. But it's fun to see how easy you can make Chinese people happy ;-) so after the ceremony it was already time to say by to Emma and to head back to my hostel. She is such a cute girl though and I was more than happy to be able to bring her some homemade cookies and a little pre christmas gift. She was too :-)
So on my way home I hooked myself up with some typical Beijing cakes and munched them down in my hostel while chatting to other people. I love people staying at hostels, they are all just really adventurous and have their own stories to tell. So no way you could get bored. I went to bed early that day, because of lack of sleep the night before and was more than delighted to see that the snorer had already left ;-P