Saturday, January 23, 2010

Laos - the Land of Smiles

That's how Laos advertises itself and that's true - people are very friendly and easygoing and smile a lot, naturally, genuinely, from the heart. I have been travelling in Laos for two weeks and it was a beautiful journey. The internet places are scarce here and the connection is slow in many places so I will write about this fascinating land soon and until now just sending you greetings from Laos and many hugs.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Croatia and China

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year!

I am sorry I haven't been in touch for so long. I hope to write about my latest adventures soon. In October I went to Croatia with Patrycja for a week and I have been in China since 24 of October. The main reason for this trip was to do clinical practice in acupuncture in a hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which I did, and I am very glad - I learned a lot in terms of practice. I followed different doctors and was exposed to many patients and many different conditions. I did the training at the International Acupuncture Training Center, affiliated to WHO and the Beijing University of TCM. I worked at the hospital from 8:30 to 12 or 1 pm depending on the amount of patients which came for treatment. I worked at different clinics, the general clinic, VIP clinic, neurology clinic and my favourite - dr Zhou's clinic. Even though they have different names they do accept patients with all kinds of conditions to be treated, maybe the neurology clinic had more patients with conditions involving strokes, paralisis (like Bell's Palsy), spasms of all kinds and other conditions involving the nervous system (according to Western medicine diagnosis). I learned most from dr Zhou who is a wonderful person, doctor and teacher. She was a Western medical doctor first and then got fascinated with traditional chinese medicine and studied acupuncture. Patients from around China and the world come to see her. I finished the practice and stayed a little longer in Beijing with my friends Monika and Marek, and with new friends I made there, fellow students Issak (from Korea) and Alexandra (from inner Mongolia), and also friends I made in the Polish embassy. I spent Christmas with all these wonderful people and after Christmas I left Beijing to travel. I first went to Guilin and greeted New Year there and then today I came to Kunming. Tonight, at 11 pm, I will be going to the old city of Dali which is further north in the Yunnan province. Here's the jist of my whareabouts. The more detailed description of places I've seen and visited will come soon. In the meantime many hugs to all of you friends and readers of my blog, and many kisses.

P.S. I have no access to my blog. Like four years ago blogs and youtube are blocked here so I am sending this message to Marcin who will post it for me on my blog. If I come across some internet place with fast internet connection, I will write again, and if not, then I will write from Laos which I plan to go to next.