Since I still cannot dive and my group had 2 dives planned, I had a day for myself. I went to a QiGong lesson at this beautiful resort with an incredible view. It was basically the only one there and we did some Tai Chi with a bamboo stick, it made me feel like a ninja. I could imagine doing this as a practice, it had so much beauty in it and brought so much peace. After the lesson I had a coffee with the teacher - Stephanie is from Argentina and after traveling for a while, she decided to move to Koh Tao for a few months. This island does hold some magic, many people seem to fall in love with it and stay. Stephanie was telling me about her life and how she is on a journey facing her fears. It would take a long time to write everything down, but it was very inspiring. And got into some

tough topics like the only sure thing we know about life is, that we all are going to die, and why are we fighting it so hard and treating it as the worst thing that can happen. And not as something natural. How can we find peace in death and make the time we do have, count. Appreciate the small things and the present fleeting moments. It makes you think on what are we spending our time in our day-to-day life and helps to prioritize.

In the afternoon I met up with a friend that I met on sunday in a café. She was an art teacher back in Germany and is now traveling and sketching a lot. She is going to work in an artist residency for a few months in China.

For sunset I went for a snorkle. I saw it as a sign that one of our group found snorkling goggles during their dive and the dive center let me rent a snorkle for free. I got some swimmer ear plugs to protect my ears and I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe the glasses are a little too big but I couldn‘t really tell, because maybe the visibility also was a little blurred due to the time of day.

When getting out of the water, I stopped at some rock and observed a fish swimming around it. Nothing special, but it‘s just my favorite fish, and I wanted to take some time to appreciate it. And then, suddenly, something inside the rock started to move. IT WAS AN OCTOPUS (fun fact: octopussy is an allowed plural form that can be used). It was very small, and it was sitting there rolled into an egg. I could see it breathing and imitating not only the colours but also the 3D-texture of the stone covered in algae. It was fascinating.

This makes me remember, that when I was sitting on my balcony in the afternoon earlier, a neighbor‘s kid came up to me and gifted me this green mantis. No words. He just gave it to me and left.

In the evening there was a jam session, the QiGong teacher asked the manager if they have a violin I could play on and it made my day. I couldn‘t hear myself that well and sometimes it was hard to figure out the chords since the songs were not the easiest to follow. But it filled me with so much joy and the musicians were just fantastic. I will come back next week. And the manager asked me if I can give her violin lessons.