View from Balcony at Sunset
Another View from Balcony at Sunset
Anonymous Soi
My New Guitar
Art Gallery Window Reflection
LeRoy
Haagen Dazs - 10 bucks!
Hallucinating in the Afternoon Heat
Breathe Deep
Bamboo Grove
I have just returned from my 3rd run this week, a 3 mile jaunt around the gates. After the first run my legs were quite sore, which is to be expected. On my 2nd run I had to take it slow so went the opposite direction and ran to the Chiang Mai Zoo. Today my legs still felt sore, but not as bad, so I went back to the gates, and began the run with a 20 minute Jimi Hendrix jam on the ipod. I was running pretty quick and was surprised to find that after 20 minutes I still was not close to the turn around point from the first run, which meant that initial run was more like 5 miles - no wonder my legs are still sore!
A couple of days ago I was walking around in the shopping mall near The Dome (I normally hate malls, but it is one of the few connections I have to my home culture) and I saw a small shop selling a small selection of guitars. I tried one and it sounded and felt good, and it was only 2000 baht ($65), so I bought it, along with 4 picks. The odd thing was within 5 minutes, carrying my new guitar in a pink shopping bag, I came across a real guitar store in the same mall. I walked in wide eyed, thinking I made a stupid move for buying a guitar before going to a real music shop. The thing was, I had been looking for a guitar store for days with no luck, and that small row of guitars was the best thing I had found, until a few moments later when I am gazing at over 100 guitars. It all turned out for the best, though, because most of the guitars were 3500-7000 baht, and I did not want to pay that much for a guitar because I am going to dump it once I leave Chiang Mai, plus there is the potential for theft from the hotel room. I found the exact model I had just bought, selling for 1950 baht, so I over paid $1.50, which made me smile. I decided as I left the store that I had bought the right guitar for the circumstances.
I am starting to settle into a routine - running as the sun rises upon the city, in the afternoons wandering with the camera, stopping at the half way mark in a quiet cafe to eat a small lunch and write letters, and in the evenings buying a small supper at Tops Supermarket (usually the pad thai for 35 baht ($1.19), followed by editing pictures and a bit of reading while lounging on my king size bed. I found a good bookstore called On the Road Books, which has an excellent selection of literature, even some Bukowski. Yesterday I bought Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, I read it when I was in college, it had made a deep impression upon me, so I want to reread it and see what it does for me now, seeing that I am currently steeped in a Buddhist culture.
I have only run 3 times so far, but I am starting to feel fitter and am beginning to lose the extra pounds I gained while I was not running. By the time I head south to the beaches in a few months I should be feeling great.
