Stuck Energy

As I do twice or three times a week, for about a year now, I went to Mania SPA today to have my painful, but relaxing lymphatic drainage massage to help my legs to be less swollen and my arms "computorache" free.

I do love to go there. Mania Spa is my home away from home. The girls are so sweet and before I take a steam bath and a shower, I do need to hug each one of them. Those girls make my life much much easier over here not just because they are extremely competent, but mainly because their hearts overflow love and caress, and care. I do love each one of those girls very much.

Mei-hua is the owner of the SPA and the sweetest thing you can ever image. God is so good to me that He gave me a Taiwanese sister. She is always very worried about my well being and even when we are out in a café having fun, she pulls my leg over her lap and starts massaging it. She is simply adorable! She is always studying and trying to find new techniques that could improve my health. She is really the best! Vivian, thank you so much for getting me an appointment with her.

So, today I arrived at the SPA around 11AM and Ciara, my personal massagist, was waiting for me. By the way, God really blessed me with those girls. Ciara is very competent and sweet and funny. We chat a lot or until I sleep like a bear. Her hands are so magical that just few minutes after she starts massaging me, I sleep deeply. I'm not kidding, that's for real! And as my body retains a lot of water due to the thyroid and kidney problem, I swear that sometimes I feel her soft and precise hands gently pressing my body as they were sharp needles on fire just getting slowly into my water lumps. Oh God, that is sooooo painful and even so I'm able to sleep.

Anyway, Ciara was massaging me and I could heard Mei-hua's chuckle and I smelled coffee being made by one of the girls also. My nose got so excited with that strong sweet smell that was coming out of the kitchen directly into my nostrils. I slept a little more knowing I was going to have a hot cup of coffee and good chat with my girls after my relaxation/suffering time.

About 1 hour later, sweet Ciara finished my massage and we got together around the coffee table to chat as we usually do. This was when I noticed some light hematomas on Mei-hua's neck. I started joking saying it was love bites and she said it was stuck energy marks because she used a piece of very smooth wood made in Japan to brush/scrap/rub the blocked energy out of her body.

What is especial about Mania Spa is that it's also a holistic SPA and it's all about balancing the energy centers within the body called chakras. I just love how I became calmer, focused, centered after I started frequenting this place. As I do trust Mei-hua I asked her to check if I had some blocked energy myself. Of course I was very sure about it! So, she explained to me that the tool she uses leaves marks only where the energy is stuck.

She started on my neck and she got amazed how my energy flows on it because it left no bruises. Then she came to my back and you can see on the pics bellow what happened!! It didn’t hurt, but I got scared of how red my back became. She didn't put much pressure on it. We call Mei-hua "dinosaur" because she got strong hands and arms, but she was very soft on me this time.

I was anxious to know what was going to happen to me after that session, and I got very surprised. I felt very energetic. It’s unbelievable how the Asian people hold some secrets on the way to care and treat body’s tiredness and weakness. To them, energy needs to flow freely into our organs to keep them in good shape and working properly.And I couldn't agree more!

What I know about it, it’s that I really feel a huge improvement on my health and on my life style after moving to Asia. Even though Asian people rush crazily on almost everything, they do take time to care and to take care of their health in an alternative way. Well, alternative way for me, westerner.

To them, going to SPA to have massage is part of their days and it’s taken as a serious activity and not just a way to indulge the ladies as we westerns use to think sometimes. It’s incorporate on their life style, male and female, and I did incorporate it on mine!

I wonder, how long those bruises will stay on my back!

I swear, it didn't hurt!

Chinese Torture

When Brasil was facing a dictatorship, the term "Chinese torture" became well known among those who were considering enemies of the state or labeled as subversive.

It was very well spread and for mere morbid curiosity I read about this sophisticate and highly well developed psychological tortures that the Chinese created to be as painful as the human body can resist! It is based on the almost infinite repetition of single move, sound, word, and even laugh!

Unfortunately I don't have a better word to call what is happening in my home since 7:30AM than Chinese torture.

So far I'm being torture for more than 8 hours uninterruptedly and it is really driving me crazy already. I really don't know how people resist to that for weeks!
I already called the front desk of the building asking them to stop that music and noise and the answer I got was that the noise for more than 8 hours uninterrupted is necessary to fix the speakers.

Speakers? Yes, speakers! I have no idea why there is a speaker inside each apartment as you can see in the pic bellow. This speaker "speaks" extremely loud and usually very early in the morning making me very scared. Every single time I'm awake by this noisy noise or I'm surprised in the middle of the afternoon by someone talking inside my home, that by the way is a very silence place, I feel I'm into 1984. 1984 is a novel by George Orwell where the population is observed by the government 24/7 and from where the term "big brother" came out.

I'm not complaing in vain, I'm really not. It's one of the most annoying sensations I ever tried in my life. I really don't like it and worse, it really scares me to death!

So, for almsot 9 hours now I'm being "distracted" by Taiwanese music and/or someone speaking without stopping in my living room. The music didn't stop for one second and sometimes someone speaks over it. I already closed the door of my office, put an earphone and nothing can make this noise to at least disturb less.

I'm trying to finish writing a proposal, but it seems impossible. And I also got a headache along with it and there is no Advil that can help me out.

I'm just wondering what they want me to confess...and to be honest, I can confess anything to stop that Chinese torture over my mind!

The living room and the speaker, above on right corner!

The speaker!

Unpredictable Taoyuan

Charming Cottage, Taoyuan-Taiwan

I do love the unpredictable way of things here in Taiwan and how it affects my life!

It's raining daily again, and days are getting darker and colder. I opened the curtains of my bedroom today around 10AM, and all I could see was cloudy gray sky, cold and rain. Usually I would spend some time looking to the city that lives on my huge window but I had a meeting with my adviser at 11 and I couldn't get any flying thoughts about my life in Taiwan, in a cloudy gray sky day. So I got ready for it. I made a hot chocolate and turned my laptop on.

At 10:45 she came online, we had our meeting and I decided to drive a little. Driving in Taiwan is a really really serious business since we never know if cars and/or scooters will come from left or right or front. Well, I'll write about that another day because it really needs an especial post.
So, I drove for while without paying much attention to where I was going. I was driving away, away from everything and everywhere. Left and right were not just directions but momentaneous and alternatives way that took me to the unknown. I just allowed the streets conducted me to blind directions I suddenly decided to go! I was choosing where to go, where to speed up, where to speed down. I was in the command of my own will and I was the only one who could decide what would be my next move.

The red lights made me stop many times and the green lights just keep me going.

New streets, new windows, new 7 elevens were passing by me in my new ways. The busy Taiwan’s streets kept my mind calm in a strange balance. The music, Nigerian hip hop, was loud and made me smile. I could feel how great each musical note could participate in my noisy and confuse but still meditation.

After many turns, I noticed I was few meters away from the entrance of one of the malls of Taoyuan, where I’ve found the best espresso of the region. As coffee lover, I had no doubt and I might stop. So, I did stop by for a hot well-built shot. It isn’t my dream espresso I must say, but it is the best one I can get over here and I’m very satisfied with that! It isn’t perfect as the Italian espressos, made in Italy only, that I really miss drinking, however it’s far better than those tinted water they serve in Switzerland and France and call it espresso.

Anyway, before going down to B2 floor to get my espresso, I went up 8^th floor to browse some bookmarks at Eslite bookstore. They just have the most exquisite ones and I love all kinds of bookmarks! Just right next to the bookstore there is a bistrot called “Charming Cottage” and I use to go there quite often. The food is delicious, the decoration reminds me of Besançon, France, where I had the great pleasure to live for some months when I was living in Europe. So, this bistrot is really cute and the music is also just right!

I got some bookmarks that I was wanting and 2 magazines, InStyle and Real Simple and I went to have lunch at the bistrot. As soon as I walked in, I got completely shivered. In a raining dark day, in a bistrot in Taoyuan, around 4PM, Djavan sings Sina. Djavan is one of my very favorite Brazilian singers and he writes almost all his songs! His work is very well done, well cooked, it has a dash of sophistication inside the Brazilian beat! His songs are amazing and my all time favorite song was playing when I stepped into the place.Wow, what an unpredictable moment.

Suddenly my eyes got full of tears and I couldn’t stop smiling. The expressions on my face was kind of confuse even to myself. The waiter came to get my order and I’m sure she didn’t get until now what was going on...tears in a smiling face of a woman with curly hair that was singing in a strange language! Too much for sure!

Life is indeed full of unexpected turns!

With a huge smile on my wet tearful face and singing “Sina” in a bistrot in Taoyuan, Taiwan, I ordered Cesar Salad!

North Coast of Taiwan

Saturday I left home around 8 AM to go to a beach, any beach! I love the smell of the sea and the feeling on being near it. As it isn't the first time I live in island, I have lived in one in Brasil and it was great, I was very excite to discover this lifestyle here in Taiwan.
Being from a country who owns a beautiful and long coast I use to admire the mysteries of the sea for long. Unfortunately the state I was born in Brasil has no sea, so this increase my passion for it.

Anyway, on my mind I would be back home with a little tan and a huge smile on my face caused by the sunshine day...I was soooooooo wrong!!
Well, there was no sunshine day but only rainy day! Just about 30 Km from the city I live, the sky started become grayer and cloudier and the inevitable came...rain. Came and didn't stop until today, Tuesday!

I was driving to the Northeastern Coast when I realized that my plans for a long and lazy day under the sun would be gone! So, since I was passing by an exit to a famous village I changed my plans and I went to Jiufen that is an old historical town on the top of the mountain where the main attraction is the craft and the tea houses!

It was a very nice going to there. I love how things usually turn out greatly of a frustrate previous plan!

Northeastern and North of Taiwan

The organic shape of those rocks are beautiful,
making them natural sculptures!

I love those shapes!

My swim suit is in my car...
Wondering...get it or not get it!

The road contorts the coast proportioning a
scenic view in each turn!

Abbey road in Keelung!

Taiwan is a very beautiful country
and it's always a pleasure to travel around here

On line, waiting for a fresh and warm meal in Jiufren!

One of the many comfy and beautiful tea house of Jiufren!

Tea time!

Green tea's cookie, dry mango and the wonderful mountain's tea!

Preparing the tea with all the formalities!
Very nice!

The atmosphere of this tea house is absolutely perfect!
I loved there very much!

Tea house! It's so charming!!

Tourists and more tourists taking a pic of the tourist...

The view from the old village!

The funniest diet propaganda I ever saw!
Yeah, right! Just take this medicine and...

101 building on left, a view from the road!

Differences

I’m back home, back to my not-so-excited- life here in Switzerland.
In France I met my old buddies and new people as well. It was great, more than that, it was wonderful!! However, things not so excited happened there and I need to talk about them, because it is a world issue right now.

For me the best thing in the whole world is the difference. The difference of color’s skin, the difference of language and its accents, the difference of cultures and thoughts.
Those are what make the world, in its most ample possible sense, the world!

I love so much to meet people from different countries and cultures. I do grow with that! I love to hear their day-by-day histories, how they grew up, about the schools they went to, how they met theirs loved ones, what they eat every day, what they eat for specials days such Ramadan, Christmas, Divali and so on…
It is a very enjoyable time for me.

I’m this kind of person that take the initiative to talk to somebody if I want to. I look at people’s eyes to talk to them and usually I talk with a huge smile on my face. That's me! I think that is so agreeable to chat with different people from different places. It is remarkable!

My father thought something that I will never forget it. He said that everybody deserves a respectful approach. Absolutely everybody!! Also, he said that I need to treat everybody equaly, and it doesn’t matter if the person works as the president of the country or as maid.
It really doesn’t matter! Thanks dad, where you were right now.
When I was 12 years old, he took me to prostitution’s house and he explained to me what the girls did there and how hard their lives were. In Brazil those workers are called women of easy life. He also pointed out that they had parents as everybody else, they had illusions and dreams as everybody else. Fantastic!!!
It was the most valuable lesson somebody ever taught me.

What I want to say with all that?
I want to say that one day I would like to see people treating people equally, people of all skin’s colors getting along friendly, people celebrating their differences, people respecting the others' religious. Is that utopia? Maybe, but I cannot live without thinking this way!

Differences, that is the statement!
It’s what makes this planet so splendid, so noble. The difference is the way that takes us away from all the boring issues of diary life.

All those conflicts going on now make me sadder because I can feel that there is a not-so-invisible line trying to destroy the differences, trying to put everything in the standardize mode. If you are different from the power people, you are nothing or/and you are danger to the society or/and you are terrorist or/and you are called names on the streets and a lot more.
That’s just unbelievable, unacceptable, and inadmissible. Hello, we are in the end of 2005, XXI century!

I went to France to see my dear friends that I met there when I was studying French. They are from Libya, South Korea, Portugal, Turkey, Hong Kong, Thailand, Morocco, Nigeria…. you name it!
Almost all the students live there for short time, like 6 months or so. Usually in the same building that belongs to the school.
I cannot say how many times I went to this building to meet my friends. This building was criminally burned down. One student died and 2 are in a hospital right now.
This happening for one reason: xenophobia.
I cannot live with that. I cannot accept that.

Take care!