MISS FLOWER CHIANG MAI 2010

Those of you who know me very well know that it is really unlike me to be in any sort of beauty pagent. On this trip however, I have decided to do anything and try everything. So when the director of my trip asked if I wanted to compete in a beauty competition for the city of Chiang Mai I said yes along with twelve other girls from my group. We had NO idea what we were getting into.
We started off on friday leaving class early to go get ready at 3pm. We got to this hotel and they had all these people waiting to get us dressed in traditional thai outfits and put makeup on us and do our hair. There were 22 total women in the international section of the competition. So after getting all ready, having dinner and working on some sort of a talent we were ready to leave at 6:30pm. We then got in taxis and went to the festival. There is this street full of flowers and people selling food and we had to line up in twos and were police escorted through this market area to the stage. While we walked we had to say hello to everyone and wave. Can you imagine me doing this? Hammed that up for sure.
Then we got to the stage and we had to wait until the Ms. Thai pagent got over which took forever to start and didn't finish until 10:30pm. Then we had our competition where we had to say something about ourselves in Thai and then do a little talent. My talent was to name all the US states in alphabetical order in a song. It was fun but I was very nervous in front of all those people. We didn't finish the pagent until almost 12:30pm.
Both Marit and I had all of our families there to cheer us on. They stayed the whole time until they escorted us home. It was great to have them there. They gave us flowers and cheered us on loudly which is anti thai norm.
Overall it was a ton of fun! I was really tired at the end but I will definately remember this for the rest of my life. I am glad that I did it but I can tell you now...never again.
One of the girls got third from our group but the first and second place positions were sort of rigged. The first place girl was chineese and lives in Thailand so therefore knows Thai fluently. The second place girl's dad was part of the tourist police so she knew everyone from the competition.
Today we went back to the flower festival to walk around and hang out with the group to watch the parade. We had fun but it was really hot and we got sunburned. Luckily the rest of the weekend is for relaxing and maybe going swimming? Tomorrow night we are going to hang out with a good Thai friend and do some more shopping!
Marit might put up pictures of the festival on facebook so either look at those or I will try and put on on this page.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
Aubs