Monday, September 12, 2016

The Blue Buddha

On Friday, I came back from the Belgian coast where I decided to spend another few days. I felt my stay there the week before was not really sufficient to get the recuperation I needed. And I didn't regret it! The weather was as beautiful as during my first visit, and I felt like I was in an open-air sanitarium.

During my first visit, I had an interesting encounter. Near the place I was staying, there is this beach club called "Blue Buddha". It's a place geared at least for upper middle class people I would say; and it's characterized by a blue buddha that's present everywhere on this compound - at the entrance, as a picture on all the beach chairs and pillows - just everywhere.

So there was this young lady with a massage table. She greeted me and I asked her whether she was offering massages. To my delight, I found out that she was specialized in neck and shoulders, so we made an appointment for the next day. It turned out that she is a so-called "Zen Assistant", and she told me that she would also do "Healing". Well, I didn't mind as long as she would be able help me. So the next day, she prepared the massage table and started working on me. However, the wind was a bit strong that morning, so she asked me if I wanted to go to a more protected area and start over again. So we changed locations, and in the process we had fun trying to keep my modesty. During my last visit, I got another massage; and it was really affordable, since she is just starting her business.

The Blue Buddha is greeting the guests
Beach chairs with buddha
Public marriage beds - hilarious!
On the beach

So I'm back to Brussels now and started taking care of my back log of things to do. Yesterday afternoon, I went to Mouscron Church. It's a small place in the Walloon Region of Belgium, close to northern France. In two weeks time, the local church is organizing a Health Expo, and I'm volunteering. On my journey there, I was only a bit frustrated because when changing trains in Ghent, I sat down in the wrong train and thus I ended up arriving quite a bit delayed. I found it weired that the ticket inspector in the first train couldn't tell me to which track I needed to go for the transfer. But I guess I really need to get used to the fact that in this country, things are not organized as well than in Germany! Nevertheless, I had a nice scenic train ride, and I still arrived on time for the most important part of the pre-meeting.

Next Sunday, I'm going to conduct a cooking school at my home. I look forward to that. So the weekends will be packed before I go to Germany end of the month. But I'm so thankful that I'm not back at my work place yet. This gives me enough time during the week to prepare everything. Indeed, time is a precious gift.