Moments and Movement: Thoughts from Chiang Mai

View from a street in my neighborhood

I love blogging about my travel adventures as they are happening. When I write about them, I re-live them. I re-learn from them. I get to absorb them in their present and in their reflection. It’s like having two experiences in one.

Behind the rusty iron gate of a school, groups of boys and girls played volley ball in white blouses and pink pants.  Clinging to the gates were leafy vines with perfumed roses, the same color as the children’s school-uniform pants. Peering past the rose curtains, the skirts of girls danced in the wind like petals. I couldn’t capture it on camera, because movement was the beauty of that moment. To steal an instant from that view and put it in the confines of a frame would have been criminal, an insult to the art of the children’s game, the beauty of their petal-pink pants. It was thoughtless, unintentional beauty. The kind of moment that is unaware of itself.

There is a weird ebb and flow of this city. At times some places are packed while others are empty. Then the next house it will reverse. The crowds will move to the empty place, pour out into the streets, leave the previous place silent. We spend our days weaving between these erratic patterns, trying to seek out  the quiet spaces.

Every few hours a plane flies overhear. The sonic boom bounces off the mountain walls and shakes our little city in the valley. Somehow the sound of planes taking off has become comforting to me. Like the call to prayer, it’s a sign that the day is continuing, time is passing, a regular check-in.

Monday, Dec. 1 Wawee Coffee, 1:38 pm

Chiang Mai Cafe Catalog: Old Town Edition

For of these cafes are an easy walking distance from the Tha Pae gate. Besides Libernard and Graph Cafe, I found the rest serendipitously  by walking around. Since this is a considerable distance from CMU, you won't find these places crowded with college students. Instead, they'll be dominated by tourists and "digital nomads."

1. Rockpresso

Café on the first floor of a hostel. Very lively with friendly staff and excellent drinks. I recommend the Rockpresso Espresso.

2.  Libernard

A café in the courtyard of a family’s home. Has a grungy, homey quality to it, which junk strew around the yard and cats climbing on you. Not the kind of place I could work from, but charming and memorable.

3. MoRooms

This café is located in the unique artsy hotel. Their seating and wifi are sufficult, but it feels too much like a restaurant for me to sit comfortably for hours.

4.  Arte Café

A charming and tiny place near the main road. The menu is limited but the coffee is supurb. I enjoyed sitting in the garden behind the café.

5. Graph Café

A tiny café with gourmet coffee and basically six seat. This is a small place so come here to chat and sample the coffee, but don’t try to pull out your laptop and work. 

Old Habits Die Hard: Nylon in Thailand

For years I spent one Saturday afternoon per month at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Costa Mesa, California reading the latest issue of Nylon Japan. I had a subscription through my local Kinokuniya store, so the magazine was shipped directly form Japan to my local bookstore. When I moved to Portland I resumed my subscription with Kinokuniya in Beaverton, OR, and took up reading the magazine at Insomnia Café nearby.

When I lived in Japan, even in the rural mountains of Shimane, I would drive 40 minutes to Oda city and pick up the magazine at a “Just Books” store, then I usually preferred to read it at Starbucks in Hiroshima, specifically the one in Hondori, where the view from the second-floor window provided a great show of the fashionable shoppers on the streets below.

Now I am here in Chiang Mai, where I have picked up a copy of Nylon Thailand, and am enjoying reading it in the shaded patio of Impresso, one of Nimman’s many fashionable cafes. As I thumb through the glossy pages, I am struck by how location –specific the magazine is. I always loved Nylon Japan more than Nylon America because of it’s specific focus on Japanese brands and designers, Japanese photoshoots, and Japanese style and travel. In the Thailand issue, I am seeing similar signs of cultural specificity. One fashion photoshoot features EST, a Thai brand of soda. Another photoshoot features styles that I have only seem on the streets of Bangkok. A short travel guide has a series on fashionable places in Chiang Mai, very fitting, considering that I am here right now. Well, it’s looks like I’ve got my schedule figured out for tomorrow.

Photo Diary: Graffiti of Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai Cafe Catalog: YMCA Edition

The YMCA neighborhood is just a 15 minute was from Nimman, but feels worlds away. Meander down the quiet residential streets and you are bound to find these awesome cafes:

1.     Artisan Café

My all-time spot in Chiang Mai. It’s only open until 7:00 pm, but it is by far the most atmospheric, creative, an relaxing space I have found to work from in this city. This is the type of place I was hesitant to mention because I didn’t want the crowds to flock there (not that crowds of people actually read this blog but…)

2.     ZZZesta

A modern and basic café with wifi. Seems more popular than Artisan but I can’t figure out why. A solid choice if you are in the area. 

3.     Ahka Ama Café

A bit farther out in the middle of nowhere is this cafe,with scenic indoor and outdoor seating, with unique offerings. I ordered the one thing on the menu I didn't recognize, which was something like an espresso cocktail. 

I live here: My Apartment in Chiang Mai

A very belated by much-owed salut to my writing habitat for the month of November 2014.  I’ve decided to use NaNoWriMo as a place-marker to display my dwellings at that time, wherever I may be in the world.

In November 2013,  I was living in a large, freezing cold house inthe mountains of rural Japan. This year I am in an air-conditioned studio apartment off of a bustling street in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The two places could not be more different. In Japan, I had to drive everywhere. It was a five-minute drive just to the nearest convenience store. In Thailand I can get everything I need within a five-minute walk. When I was typing this post last November, I was wearing my sweater and winter coat indoors (my huge wooden house had inadequate heating). This year, actually, at this moment, I'm wearing shorts and a tank top and the AC is turned up to full blast.

Last year, I had to make that house home for a year, and this year my studio will only be my refuge for one month.