Working in the hospitality industry, I've met many new friends from different cities, countries as well as culture which broaden my horizon and built up my strong friendship with them 💙 I believe when someone crosses my path, it means there must be a reason and my duty is just to find an answer for that.
Looking back to my friend list, luckily I have some close mates who have made my life more colorful and meaningful. Today I will share with you my friendship with a beautiful and smart lady that I met in Vietnam recently. Despite being short, we still have a lot of unforgettable time together.
This is Gaëlle. She is my resident at first and slowly became one of my close friends. The shot was taken during a tour on Ba Be lake.
Gaëlle is a sweet French lady with a strong character. She is very interested in sharing her personal opinion about women's rights. Whenever she sees women working hard, she always gives hands to help and also never accepts the word "housewife" in family. That is something that impressed me the most when we first met.
Beside that, she is very talented at writing. She has started sharing her poems to the world and got a lot of good feedback from readers. One day she came to me with a nervous face and told me that she got invited on an online program organized by a famous publisher in France. She was too excited to know what to do... 😅 Imagine you become famous suddenly and the world totally changes surrounding you, what will you do? That was her case! We practiced and prepared a lot before the show and it was in a different time zone and she had to stay awake until midnight. I felt bad that couldn't stand with her that day 😵
Screenshot from her work on Instagram
You can connect with her on Instagram to see what she has done so far 💮 Even though I can't understand French, I still enjoy her arrangement with pictures and her poems. It looks clear and pretty.
I was a bit down when she went back to her country suddenly. I couldn't accept that fact until we had all papers done (tickets, covid test, etc.). On the day she left, I run away and cried like a baby 🙈 I told her and myself that "it's not goodbye but see you soon" but somehow I still miss her 👭
Alright, I will not deep-dive into this shadow, let's review some of our happy moments through my shots.
We often had meals together and bla bla a lot at the end of the day. She is a good cook and also a wine lover (you know who I compared with😆) Her family owns a little vineyard under her name in a countryside near Normandy and I hope one day I could lay on her farm and get drunk with her homemade wine and ciders 😝
We had a lots of fun trips together with Lola around Danang and Vietnam, one of them was in Ba Be Lake which I used to mention in a recent post. We decided quite fast for the trip when Danang suffered from the rainy season and we were quite depressed. After a short discussion, we booked tickets and left Danang immediately the next day. The trip was quite long for us with many different transports (plane, taxi, shuttle bus, boat, scooter) and finally we arrived🤩
Dinner with our host
After three days staying in Ba Be, enjoyed nature, food and local activities,we moved to Cao Bang which is around four hours by car. It's another majestic destination which has borders with China and many mountains with caves inside. We were so brave to drive up and down hills everyday almost eight hours to attractions, even in the dark as there was no light on the road 😎 I couldn't believe we made that!
She looked a bit tired after a long drive
We went shopping in a hat shop, tried a lot but bought only one. The owner was super lovely, even gave us some gifts before leaving his store. She did selfie with me and sent me her creation🤠
Another weekend getaway, we had a small trip with another friend, 
I felt grateful to meet her. She is like my little sister who always takes care of my personal feelings and is interested in my professional work. Thanks to her, I could express my thoughts and ideas comfortably and sometimes she even inspired me to move forward with my work. That's great, isn't it? I hope we will meet and travel again when covid's over🌅☘️✨
Like many people, I used to call everyone as friends, however the older I am, the more quality I consider than quantity. I think a close friend is someone that I have common sense with, often stay in touch to share happiness and personal issues with each other. I know each person has their own definition of friendship, I don't judge that and glad to hear from your opinions too.
Thank you for reading and stay safe wherever you are 💙