Have you ever seen a giant Dragon that spits fire and sprays water?
A giant cross-river Dragon in the center of a beautiful “City of Light”?
You’ll see it in this video!
Have you ever been to a midium-sized city but is an incredible combination of the beauty of epic nature: ocean, beautiful beaches, rivers, mountain, peninsula, islands; waterfalls, of massive unique and colorful bridges that go across the same one river. And standing on one of them, you can most likely see all of the others.
Not mentioning the amazing culture, food or festivals yet, those are things that will take some time to experience.
As you walk into a new city, what you experience first is “the look” – it is what you see, what triggers your eyes then go straight into your mind and heart – before you tell yourself: Alright! This is exciting! This looks promising, and here I am, I’m ready to learn more about this place!
Visiting Da Nang, you’ll get lost in an urban nature and colorful lights. That’s what I guarantee you!
When I said urban-nature, I just laughed at myself for making up such term. I always do that! Yes! Nature covering up the entire city, and nature inside the heart of the city. Here we live a really modern life - in nature!
Let me start this story really quick so you’ll have some time soon to watch the video, cause it is the main point of this post :3
Remember those days in July 2020, I came to Da Nang from Sai Gon on a midnight flight with a broken heart. Yes, people know it, we travel after breakups. I don’t consider that as running away from anything. I do believe that it is a healthy way to treat your broken heart after a long journey in a relationship that did not work out.
SEE A NEW PLACE, SEE NEW PEOPLE, TRY NEW THINGS! That 1000% helps! Trust me!
Da Nang was definately not a new place to me since I had been taking tours here for 4 years. Each time I had tour, I flew from Sai Gon to Da Nang, stayed here for a couple weeks or a month, then went back to Sai Gon. That time, Da Nang was familiar and new to me at the same time.
Only one day after my breakup from a 4 years relationship, I booked a flight at 4PM and left Sai Gon at 11PM same day.
Broken heart, yes! That feeling can not be described by words. No love, no work, no friends, no family, and I did not have much money with me either. There was something that urged me to come here. And my journey of healing my heart started. Brand new start! Brand new adventure!
The cool thing of starting out something brand new is: You know you are free and you have nothing to lose! Yes! That sets your mind free like my friends always make a joke: Yeah you are single and ready to mingle! Haha
Those days, I started by staying in a hostel to save money for a few days, then I moved into an Airbnb apartment and stayed there for 8 days.
One time a little local friend of mine, who was the only friend and not very close that I had took me on a motorbike trip around the city and up to Son Tra mountain.
I met him on a flight from Da Nang back to Sai Gon on one of my tours years ago. He is around my little sister age and when I first met him on that flight, he was a highschool boy.
When he knew I was here with a broken heart, he came and saved me haha
That was a really sunny and beautiful day, I pulled out my phone and took random videos. The day after that when I looked at what I filmed, my heart just suddenly melt and urged me to put everything together. That is what you are watching now.
And I named this video: HOW DID I FALL FOR DA NANG IN JULY?
After the video came out, I never wanted to leave Da Nang anymore after the total of 10 days being here. Another outbreak came up and we were getting into a strict lockdown. When all the tourists were in a rush to leave the city, I decided to make a crazy decision – to stay – to find an apartment to move in for a long term stay, with only a backpack, no motorbike, no guitar, only 4 pairs of clothes, and of course with a heart that was still broken. But I knew I already fell for Da Nang and loved it enough to decide to stay to go through such hard time with it which I knew it would only help growing my connection with this city more. And the first time ever in my life, I felt like I belong to a city, I felt like home!
Bittersweet! This is for today and I appreciate you reading my post. I’ll be back to share more soon.
Hope you enjoy the video and hope this story inspires you in someway.
As I always say this to myself: “The most dangerous is not that you keep changing your mind then keep changing your actions accordingly. The most dangerous thing in life is when your mind and heart already changed but you still try to stay in that comfort zone, stick with what is not right for you (anymore) – at that moment and not making you happy anymore. So... comfort zone is just temporary painkillers”
"Don’t you want to take painkillers forever?" 😋
Little Beatle ♫
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