Sunday, February 26, 2006

ALOHA Chiang Mai....







Having a delicious Italian meal with my freinds Sai, Nok, and her Swiss boyfreind Tommy. The owner, Georgio, comes from the Italian town of Vincenza and was kind enough to serve us wine from his home city !
Molto bene !!!






Some beautiful traditional Thai dancers and the Chiang Mai Cultural Center. Those are gold finger attachments that they put on the ends of their fingers to give the appearance of length in their dance.












The Pool where I swim every day ..gym is inside..what a view !



Well it has been two weeks since I last wrote..my apologies for not keeping better contact but I have been quite busy with classes and teaching and spending time with freinds. I guess I just needed to detach from the computer for awhile.

I am leaving Chiang Mai tonight, at last.After 6 weeks full of wonderful experiences, new freinds made, and a time for much personal reflection, it is time for me to go. I am saddened to leave my freinds and this wonderful city but I know deep in my heart, that I will back soon. I am especially thankful for the many people I have met here that have really become such good freinds to me. I have had some rough moments at times here and it seems like there has always been someone close by that could lend me an ear. Friendships like this are priceless, especially when one is so far from home.


I am also very thankful for the Chi Gong class that I have been taking for the past week. For those of you unfamiliar with this form of exercise, it is an very ancient form of martial arts and tai chi, all in one....This is a very broad way of describing it but I must say it has been one of the best forms of exercise I have done in my life. I truly feel like my body, mind, and spirit has gone through a major balancing act and I feel so much more calm and focused in my dialy activities. I hope to continue this practice when I return to Hawaii. The fellow students in this class were wonderful as well as our enthusiastice teacher who got us motivated every morning at 8am. WE practiced for 2 hours every day by a most beautiful lake near Chiang Mai University. I felt like I was somewhere in the alps. It was beautiful.

I was also blessed last week with the visit of my good freinds Roz and John from Hawaii. They brought a wonderful Hawaiian "ohana" with them as well and we all enjoyed each others company for a couple of days. They are now sailing their own boat in Phuket for 10 days. It was so wonderful to have them around. They were a reminder of how blessed I am to have such beautiful people in my life.

I am off to Bangkok tonight and then will head south again to Phuket again on Thursday to explore a few more islands. I am looking forward to see the ocean again. I am also looking forward to explore some pretty unihabited islands and enjoy some peace. I will have friends visiting with me as well so I will not be all alone the whole time. Having good company while travelling really is a comforting thing. It is nice to share thoughts and sights with other kindred spirits around you.

I will say good bye to you all for now....I will make one more attempt right now to enter more pictures....IT really is so hard to share everything I am going through here with just a few pictures and words but I hope you do get the feeling that I have had some very powerful and wonderful experiences.

I pray you are well. Thank you for your thoughts. I am touched that you are following my journey here. Makes my adventures feel more "purposeful", in a way.

take good care.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great pics, Melina. It's obvious to see that this place has had a profound effect on you. Don't ever forget that peace stays with you in your heart forever. Best wishes to you and your family. Tell them all I said hello.

Peace and blessings,

Tony