After numerous requests from so many of you, I am back with another article. It's almost been a year and a half since I've written anything on here. Admittedly, I have never stopped thinking about writing articles on my blog; writing is my passion and so is travelling. For those of you who were wondering, no, I haven't stopped traveling. I never stopped writing either, I just haven't published anything anymore. I felt like no one was really interested in my travel experiences. It also seemed to me that my stories were irrelevant, since I have been going different places than Australia. It was time for a new chapter. But the main reason I never published anything is because of life. I was busy living life. Maybe some of you have experienced this feeling already, others might still have to or are in the middle of it. At some point in life you just become so busy that you don't know where all the time went. It is as if you jump out of a plane, but the free fall takes longer than you expected, and you keep falling and falling with such speed. It takes your breath away; you feel like you can't breathe but at the same time you enjoy the feeling in your stomach and the spectacular view. That is what the last 2 years have felt like for me. Life hit me, hard, and I was busy growing up, from a teenager to a mature student with obligations and a lot of obstacles that sometimes held me back from travelling or write about it if I did go somewhere. My life became a mixture of fast and slow days. Like a speed train at maximum speed. Or a turtle that just woke up from a nap and tries to crawl to the water to have a drink. A little bit like that. Still, here I am again. I thought a long time about what to do: Publish what I wrote about my adventures or not? Dig into my memories and write about the parts I haven’t written anything about? After plenty of drafts, deleting them and restarting, I decided that all stories are worth telling and so I am back. These are my Untold Stories that I find are worth telling and will hopefully inspire you. For this first article I am going back to the summer of 2017. Ahh, time I went back to Australia and visited my friends and host family! But this time, I am not going to talk about that- I already did anyway. Before I went to Australia that year, I went somewhere else, a country I never thought I would visit, because it seemed to me quite challenging to go there by myself, or even, with friends or family. Something in me has always wanted to go there, to see what it is actually like. I wrote this article- or parts of it, I never finished it- after my trip. I figured that, with some adjustments, this would make a good blog post. So here it is! In February I got the news that my school was organizing some sort of summer camp. We would go to China in the summer of 2017, to discover some of the culture and the habits the Chinese people have. The timing was perfect, after 14 days we would go back home and a couple days later I would leave for Australia, so no overlapping. I immediately decided that I needed to grab this chance and later that month I got news from the teacher that I could go. My excitement was unreal. I was so curious about everything, how would the people be, how would the food be, would it really be a culture shock? When we landed in Beijing, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. The air quality was horrible. Luckily, I got used to it quickly. The heat was insane as well. Going from Belgian summer weather (as in the 20 degrees we had) to the Chinese one, was quite a difference. The temperature almost doubled, in less than 14 hours. On day one, we visited the Temple of Heaven, we tasted some special tea’s and went to a temple of a Chinese college. The first day already made an impression on me. Already on day one I had so many photographs taken of me by the Chinese inhabitants. They looked at me as if I was some god that descended from heaven. With me blonde hair and blue eyes I was a real attraction for them. On day two, I was woken up by nerves. Yesterday’s dinner had stayed with me a long time. I told myself before I arrived that I would try everything. This mindset however changed quickly when dinner was served yesterday. I only ate some rice, some vegetables and some chicken-or at least I think it was chicken. I was too afraid to touch anything else that looked different than I was used to. That is why I was a little bit nervous for breakfast, who knew what I was going to get, do Chinese people eat bread? Well, let me tell you, I don’t think they do. In the morning I got something fried-this day I still don’t know what it was- and a long stick that tasted like cardboard. No offence though. Good thing I brought some dry crackers with me. Afterwards, we visited Mao’s temple and the Forbidden City. It was insanely hot that day, 42 degrees Celsius at its warmest point and all the walking was more exhausting than I thought it would be. It was all worth it though, the architecture is precious! The next day was one of my favorites. We climbed the Great Wall of China-or at least part of it 😉. Again, it was 41 degrees and sweat was dripping from my whole body. All this suffering was rewarded with the amazing views we got to see. Afterwards, we went to the Summer palace and honestly, this was one of the prettiest things I had ever seen. I took a lot of pictures and people took a lot of pictures of me again. It started to get a little awkward now, you just stand there, posing for no specific reason with and for people you don’t know. I did it with pleasure though, these people were so friendly! Lastly on that day, we went to sports complex that was used for the Olympic games in 2008. A big sportsman like me obviously loved this, even though we only saw it from the outside. The next couple of days we spent going to Chinese class and Kung Fu class and we visited some more temples of the college we were getting taught in. After all we weren’t here to play the tourists. We were completely getting soaked up into the Chinese culture and I loved it! At night we always did something that was very popular in their culture, like papercutting, or the students would give us a performance of martial arts. One night we went to an open air theater. The setting was incredible, I cannot describe it. We were in the middle of the mountains and it was just getting dark. There were hundreds of dancers and singers and they all moved in sync. This was one of the most magical moments for me, I loved it so much that words lack to describe how amazing it was. The next day though, during Kung Fu training I suddenly felt really sick. I almost fainted and was brought to a local doctor. The high temperatures combined with the intense activity we did every morning and the same food 3 times a day-rice, chicken and if I was lucky some grapes or watermelon- took its toll on me. The doctor examined me and prescribed me different kinds of pills. According to him, I should take 11 pills for three times a day, and then I would get better soon. Indeed, your math is correct, that would have been 33 (!) pills a day. I left his office, already knowing that I would not take them, because I am in general not a big fan of pills and usually only take them when it’s really necessary. I also learned from travelling to not just blindly trust everyone, how nice or sweet they might be. However, I hadn’t fully left his office or he called me back. He thought it was a good idea to take 11 pills now already. I couldn’t possible say no, so I did as he said. What happened after that, is very vague for me. I only know someone took me back to the hotel we were staying in and according to my teacher I slept for almost 10 hours straight, even though it was daytime. I woke up again around 10 at night to get a drink and ask my friend and roommate where I was, because I had no idea. Then I slept again till 8 in the morning. Result: I almost missed a full day and was so groggy and confused when I woke up next day. When I was finally better, it was already the last day of practicing Kung Fu and Chinese, before we had a closing ceremony where we had to perform, and an exam where we had to write a text about ourselves in Chinese. We left the city to stay in a host family for two days. The girl I was staying with was incredibly sweet. I could have her room, she would sleep in the room with her father and grandmother, who also lived with them. They bought foods for me they usually didn’t buy and they took me places that were usually too expensive for them to go. They even insisted on paying everything for me, which I tried to prevent every time, but they said they couldn’t let me pay and they were honored to have someone from Europe staying in their house. They did everything to make me feel at home, and it worked, they were honestly too nice. Chinese people are so welcomingly and their hospitality is insane. After two days we said goodbye and went back to the city we were in before to write the exam and perform on the closing ceremony. This was our last day in this beautiful country. China is definitely worth visiting, there are so many incredible places to see and plenty hidden gems to discover. I never thought I would have the chance to go to China or, if I did get the chance, do all the things I did there. This country has something special, something that makes me curious, something that words cannot explain, but eyes have to see to believe its beauty.
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Welcome!Hallo allemaal en welkom op mijn blog! Mijn naam is Lidewij en ik ga voor 3 maanden studeren in Australië. Via deze weg wil ik jullie allemaal op de hoogte houden van mijn avonturen.
Archieven
August 2019
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