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One of the great things about living in Thailand is that life can be so simple. You don't really realize how many of life's conveniences can just be done away with, and life is still great. Like flushing toilets, bathtubs, television sitcoms, washing machines and shopping centers. But still, there are things that you just don't fully appreciate until they are taken away. I suspect donuts would fall into this category, but I know for a fact that hot showers do. For a month and half we've been suffering under the tyrrany of an ice cold shower at our house. At first I braved one every other day. Breifly, I tried taking them in the afternoon in the hopes that the sun would warm the pipes a bit. No such luck. I'm not ashamed to say that I often went a second day without showering. It was damn cold. I would complain to the roommate and he'd just give a macho shrug and say "I am Thai, I grew up in a village, we showered from a bucket and it was always cold." I got a similar line from the other roommate shortly before she left for England. Sucks to be me. But mother England must have made her soft, because much to my joy, she bought water heater for the shower within days of returning. Apparently, her born in a village thai boyfriend admitted to being afraid of the shower as well. So for the last week I have been having the longest, hottest, most delicious showers in all my history of showering.

Last night we went to the winter festival. It probably sounds better than it is. According to one Thai friend, the festival is held because in Chiang Mai, its very hot in the summer, and then, in winter it gets cold. So they have a festival for it. What it actually is, is a fair. A good old-fashioned meat on a stick, orange slide and bumper cars fun fair. There were also alot of stalls selling alot of crap, a concert, some commodity exhibitions, a disco, and a train. And a horror house. The horror house consisted of a very small makeshift building with a single path through a darkened interior. There was one guy in a scary mask that jumped out and said 'Raaaarrrr!!'. Karen and I laughed at him. He proceeded to follow us. A couple times he grabbed us by the shoulders and looked right at us, as if to say, 'Hey! I'm a monster! Aren't you scared?'. Shortly before I left he grabbed me again, and I thought 'ha ha, he's going to try and kiss me with that mask on'. Except that its not actually funny like it is when the giant mascots kiss you at Disney World. Just as I turned to go away I felt actual flesh on the side of my face. He wasn't going to snog me with the mask on anyway, he was just going to plain snog me. So I payed 10 baht to get molested in the dark. And it still wasn't even scary.

After that we bought some tickets for that game we usually play with floating ducks, where you fish out a number and then win the prize. They had a stage full of tv's, electronics, kitchen ware, and three or four motorbikes. We won some plastic baskets. But the lady did give me an extra one for no reason.

I've had the last two days off of work, and this is the best I could do. I have just finished reading the Life of Pi, also a great book, though I liked American Gods better. I still haven't found my missing pages. Any hope of finding another copy to surreptiously read at the second-hand shops has been dashed. Karen went to trade this copy in, and the two places wouldn't even take it because they had never heard of Neil Gaiman. For shame. Karen came back with three obscure b-rate romance/suspense novels from the 50 baht bin, and they wouldn't take American Gods because they'd never heard of Neil Gaiman? Amy Tan? O.K. Chris Manby? Sure. Snifenbrau Snuffenfufer? Absolutely. Neil Gaiman? Who? They even took that self-indulgent book Party Monster and resold it for 250 baht. But I told Karen it was really still worth reading, even missing the pages. Soon, I will have company in my misery.