The fair which will feature exhibitions, video mapping, live painting and music along side with kad mua market of aunties and grannies in the community.

Tucked away in the fertile forests of Chiang Mai, deep in the heart of Sameong district, lies a hamlet of traditional villages where the Karen hill tribe live. In these remote communities, the women still wear native handwoven Karen tunics, and the men herd water buffaloes to plough the farm, as they once did 50 years ago.

Last May Alun Cooper put action to his words by bringing together a group of students and offering them a chance to influence the school’s strategic plans. Senior school student council members spent months identifying problems, creating visions, setting strategies and with a vast input of emotions and thoughts, presented their plan to the Head of School.

Elegant, bright from the rays shining down from the sun-roof, with open spaces offering views of the bustling Nimman soi 3, Saruda Finest Pastry is a sophisticated patisserie serving cakes, tarts, torts and sweet pastries at a quality and level of aesthetics hard to find in our city.

It’s time to celebrate!!

Alexa Hostel’s Nimman Social has fast become one of the area’s most popular hang- and meet-up venues. The hostel is aesthetically pleasing and very competitively priced for its prime location, with rooms and dorms available starting in the hundreds of baht.

This is a great spot for teenagers who enjoy playing different board games all day and having a chill weekend break from studying. This game haunt also offers a small selection of video games which you can play with your friends.

We love nothing more than discovering new places to eat and sharing our discoveries with you. Here are three of our recent pleasurable experiences this month. By the way there are many more we share in our other media, so make sure you also pick up a copy of our sister publication, Spoon&Fork, dedicated to all things food!

It is important to get outside of our comfort zones once in a while, whether it is to go somewhere new or indulge in a new experience. So, here you go, what are you waiting for?

“Clothes are the most intimate items for people,” said Wasin a (Aunchanum), costume designer of the mega budget and hit TV drama Raknakara, in a lilting Lanna accent. “It is more than a wearable apparel because it reflects our mindset, our economy, our lifestyle and our values.”

Bangkok. A wild city flashing with expensive bars, stagnant taxi rides and a labyrinthine of sois. I moved here recently and have been struggling to get my Chiang Mai friends to come down for a visit ever since.

Falalalalalalalala! ‘Tis time to get festive, feasting and fabulous.

Thailand and elephants are practically synonymous. Whether working or worshipped, elephants have coexisted closely with humans in this part of the world for millennia. Although naturally gentle and intelligent, their size and strength create unique challenges in managing as well as living side by side with them. These giants cannot be truly domesticated in the way that cattle and dogs have been bred for domestication.

Preventing cell degeneration can be challenging and convenient at the same time. It’s all about what we consume. The difficult part of this is knowing and understanding what we consume.

As you read this editorial I am writing in late November for the December issue you have in hand, we are already working on our January 2019 issue, so I can’t help my mind from skipping forward to what next year holds for Citylife and Chiang Mai.

Digital Nomads are permanently relocating to Chiang Mai in droves. It currently holds the #2 spot of Best Cities for Digital Nomads

When I heard the event named “Thailand’s Strongest Man” I thought about big burly men with bulging muscles and big scary voices. When my editor asked me to go, I really didn’t know what to think. So, I read up the schedule of the event before I went to try to familiarise myself with each competition – but it didn’t help much, because what on earth is a Log Press or a Bus Pull? When I asked my editor, she just shrugged her shoulders and told me to go and have fun and an adventure!

There is so much to enjoy here if you are a lover of a good lifestyle and have some time to indulge in a lazy few hours over a delicious dessert, a mocha berry coffee or some BBQ ribs…

We have noticed a renaissance, of sorts, of Thai cuisine here in Chiang Mai lately, as new and old restaurants turn to our roots to rediscover, reinvent, represent or simply recall ancient as well as regional Thai dishes…

The Citylife Garden Fair has been a nomadic affair over the past seven years since we sold our fabulous old office in 2011. To be honest, as nostalgic as I am about the garden of my childhood, it wouldn’t fit in a tenth of the crowds we’ve been pulling at recent fairs, so in spite of wistful homesickness, I agree with Dr. Pangloss that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Join us for this very special event that brings together the community with entertainment for the whole family. There will plenty of shopping available, with clothing, organic products, handmade crafts, secondhand goods and lots more on sale. We’ll see you at the fair. 

“Recycling has potential. It is an industry which can grow sustainably if the benefits are shared amongst all the people in the system,” said Sampan ‘Dome’ Nenrod, the founder of Eiamdee Recycle. His emerging and ambitious business has big plans to elevate Chiang Mai’s household waste management.

ICCRF is the only trade fair in ASEAN for children’s content rights which offers business opportunities to creators, writers and publishers to promote and showcase their works along with encouraging knowledge sharing and networking, while visitors can enjoy a bewildering variety of books from international publishers at special prices.

Four days passed by quickly, and like a typical fun vacation, I was sulking at the thought of going back to work. It might be the adrenalin rush of my first time in Taiwan, but the city is the image of what I imagine my hometown of Chiang Mai could be; clean and vibrant with street food and nightlife while also being safe, a city where art and technology coexist and nature is only an hour’s drive away.

Pakpoom ‘Ton’ Towatcharakun was a typical hotel employee doing the best to advance his career until he was introduced to the world of wine. Today he is Chiang Mai’s first resident sommelier, working at the Shangri-La Hotel Chiang Mai.

Down a quiet leafy soi in the Wat Umong area of Chiang Mai lies an extraordinary private art museum. Long term resident of Chiang Mai and artist Wattna Wattanapun, who has spent his life dedicated to art in its many forms, moved to Chiang Mai after spending years in the United States and Canada, building himself a studio in 2011 amongst Wat Umong’s vibrant community of artists while painting and teaching art at Chiang Mai University.

The market, along with the neighbouring community malls, which flank both sides of Atsadathorn Road, are all owned by Central Group which has been working towards turning the area into a pilot project under the umbrella of Central Group’s ‘Central Tham’, a nation-wide initiative which aims to create shared value by supporting and promoting a sustainable society.

It seems like this year’s winter is coming early and we all know the weather during this season can be quite surprisingly cold. So we are introducing you to some sensational hot pot restaurants to keep you warm with friends and family!

Not for the fainthearted, spices simply turn up the flavour notch on just about any dish. So if you can handle the heat, then head on over…

Well, if you come and support our Citylife Garden Fair 2018 this year’s recipients of your bidding, donations and raffle/tombola ticket sales will go to: Six Chiang Mai based foundations/charities!

There was a fire last night at a house just across the street from mine. It was about 3am in the morning. In my sleep, I heard a noise but I refused to wake up until I heard my mom terrifyingly yelling ‘fire!’ The image I saw through the window was shocking. We grabbed our jackets and stepped outside.

The idea of seven first dates is enough to wilt the smoothest dater. Citylife is here to help, with this list of unique and memorable first dates that should take some of the anxiety out of impressing. Whether or not they actually look like their profile pics is entirely up to chance; sorry, can’t help you there! Start on the right foot with these fun date locations.

Bars are not hard to find in Thailand, in spite of the Five Buddhist Precepts, so you hardly have to do more than walk down your soi to find a thirst-quencher. But this month we put some pressure on our livers for you to find you some cool venues we thought you might enjoy.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember to take a pause and step aside the whirligig of life. Take a day off, do something to indulge your nostalgia or go and blow off some steam/cash!

The taste of childhood served up with a twist? A dizzyingly varied dessert buffet? Small-batch, crafted yoghurts? Yes, please! With these crowd-pleasers, life is sweet.

On the morning of this year’s Asanha Bucha Day, Pat prepared an assortment of delicacies and necessities, packing them into a basket with a big jaunty bow and corralled her family into a car to drive to Wat Pong Yang Chalerm Phra Kiet in Mae Rim to make merit.

I found myself sitting in a nearly all-male audience in a dim hall bathed in a glow of LED lights shining from a big bright stage. Facing one another were players fighting to win the northern round of the ESport Thailand Championship. My eyes, along with the buzzing crowd’s, were fixed on a huge screen at the centre of the stage displaying a virtual football stadium.