Today is the start of the Chinese New Year celebrations! We worked our way across town to the Chinatown area, Warowot Market. On the way we stopped for breakfast at our favourite ice tea and coffee restaurant. Whilst we were waiting to be served drumming started on the street outside. We went to investigate and were greeted with a dancing Chinese dragon!
We looked around the market and asked when events on the stage would start. A stallholder told us they would start tomorrow. The sun was getting hotter so we decided to go back to our hotel room. We did a little bit of research and found out that the Maya Shopping Center would have a Chinese New Year Festival event today. This was great news and we started walking to the shopping center. It was quite far away and it took us a little while to get there (through pretty disgusting air pollution). However, we did stop a lot to look at various temples.
We were greeted with a shopping center decorated with Chinese lanterns. There was also some models of Chinese dragons outside and a stage too.
We listened to a man playing the guitar and then went to look around the shopping center. We went up to the roof which had incredible views over the mountains and Chiang Mai.
We also went around to the back of the shopping center where there's a food court and had our dinner - 'Lanna'. When we went back outside there was a new act on the stage. It was a young girl singing and she had an amazing voice. Apparently, she had been on TV. Once she had finished, on came the next act. This act was four young girls who did a traditional Thai dance. This was followed by a Thai Boxing dance and another amazing singer from The Voice Thailand. The entertainment was great and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We left once the acts had finished and started walking back to the hotel. We stopped at a restaurant and had a dessert with pandan custard. After leaving the restaurant we took a wrong turn and had to walk all the way around the moat. We eventually arrived back at the hotel, having walked a long way today.
