I really like the feel of Chaing Mai and I could see myself living here for a while.  I keep thinking back to my meeting with the placement person at Xploreasia and wondering why when I told her I wanted to live in Chaing Mai, she said “No you don’t”.  I remember liking this city when I was here in 2006.  It’s gotten busier and waaaaaaay more touristy, but I like it.  I think I would have liked being placed here.  I think I had an idea in my head before moving to Thailand and it was to experience living in a different culture, but to also be an xpat doing xpat things.  But, in Sam Ngao, I don’t feel like an xpat.  I feel like that odd, tall foreign woman.  Just wandering around Chaing Mai I realize, this is what I pictured in my head before coming here.  I wonder if I would like living here or I just think so because it seems to match the picture I had in my head.

I went to the 3D Art Museum with Annalise and a girl she met on the train.  So there are a ton of photos from that.  A lot of them came out kinda blurry, but I posted some of the fun ones below anyway.

Tonight we went to a dance and dinner show at the Chaing Mai Old City Cultural District.  It was a pretty evening.  The dancing went on a little longer than I would have liked, but the food and the atmosphere were both great.  They had traditional Thai dancing as well as traditional Hill Tribe dancing.  The dresses for most of the Thai dancing were so beautiful.  The dances were all pretty slow and included movement of the feet and arms, but little else.  It was fascinating to see how little the heads moved.  Their smiles all looked fake and there was no change of expression through out the dance.  It was as if their heads were not part of them or they were vacant.  It looked like they were dolls.  I found this fascinating and disturbing all at the same time.  The hill tribe dances were similar except there was no smiling which made them look bored.  I wonder what this cultural thing is where the head is not present.

I’d like to write more, but I can barely stay awake.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore