I will usually defend the concept of travelling alone, but I will admit there are a couple of ways in which it is not so great. Tours and hotels and everything tend to be cheaper when you are splitting it with another person, and even more importantly, you get to share more dishes than if you are just ordering alone. So unfair.

So far I haven't really done all that much in Thailand. I wandered around yesterday and saw some temples and the night market, and today I went on a short river cruise and then promptly got lost, although I prefer to call it "sightseeing". Tomorrow I am doing a cooking course, Friday I am going trekking, and Saturday I am taking a day trip to Chiang Rai. Sunday is probably going to be dead...the travel agent even suggested that I would probably just want to lounge that day, preserving my strength for the Sunday Market. Depending on how dead things get here on New Years Day, I may end up sleeping late and then hanging out at the guesthouse with my kindle. I'm waiting to hear back if I can do elephant camp on the 3rd and 4th as that will affect my other plans. Apparently all the offices will be shut from the 31st to the 3rd so I need to book everything before then.

Just aimless wandering has been nice so far, though. Frankly, I'm just happy to be warm. The weather is pretty much perfect, not too hot and not at all humid. The Thai people tend to be bundled up while the tourists are walking about in summer clothes.

I have, of course, managed to squeeze in a foot massage and an oil massage so far. Next up is just a basic Thai massage, I think. And Thursday morning is probably going to be a spa event. I need some pampering to prepare me for the overnight flight and return to cold!

Merry Christmas, all! Hope you are having a fun, happy holiday.

I opted not to go to yoga on account of not wanting to run around like a headless chicken all morning and so spent my very first Christmas all alone. Probably if I wasn't going to Thailand tomorrow this might be a bit sad, but as it is I had a nice relaxing day that started with boozy french toast and saw me finally getting my suitcase packed and even doing a bit of cleaning so that when I come back on the 6th I don't immediately stumble over a giant mess. And the first person to make any comments about "a Christmas miracle" is getting punched in the face.

I did have a nice little get-together last night. Kylie invited me to her place in Fukuroi and so I took a trip down memory lane and went back. Except that she lives out even further in the countryside! As the only non-Japanese people there we explained the tradition of Christmas dinner, which is the same both in New Zealand and Canada: eat more food than you possibly think you can. And also drink enough wine to float a boat. Today's Christmas dinner was a bit more low key, as I made my traditional pre-vacation Everything Soup (as in, I toss everything in the vegetable crisper into a pot and simmer it) and just had that.

I think I'm pretty well packed. It's a bit tricky as I need to make it to (and from, later) the airport without freezing to death but also without bringing along a bulky winter coat. I have a plan of attack but I won't find out until tomorrow if it worked. Speaking of tomorrow, this time tomorrow I will be almost at my destination! My flight arrives in Bangkok around 9:30 pm. There is a two hour difference which I think will work out well for me...my body will think I am sleeping in until 9 while the clock will actually say 7. I haven't made any firm plans yet but I know what I want to do, I just need to find a travel agent or booking place and work out the best schedule.

And now I need to go finish off my bottle of wine, as otherwise I will come home to, at best, cooking vinegar.

Merry Christmas again!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

I'm in denial, actually. I still have a bunch of stuff to do and I haven't started packing yet. I haven't even decided what I'm doing on Christmas day! My choices are a) stay home, all bundled up in pjs, playing the Muppet Christmas Carol on a loop while I pack or b) go to Satoe's special Christmas yoga event. Both options appeal, and either way I don't have to wear anything more constrictive than yoga clothes all day. The only problem with the yoga thing is that it means I absolutely have to have everything all packed and cleaned and ready to go before I head out. Ok, the second problem with the yoga thing is that it will require a bike ride in the freezing wind. That bit also doesn't sound so fun. There is also the fact that I'm going to a Christmas Eve party tomorrow night (for, and I quote, all the "sad, lonely, dateless people", so...lots of booze, then) and that may effect how energetic I feel come Christmas morning.

At least I finished all my Christmas baking. (Well, almost all. I still need to make a cake for tomorrow but I'm thinking of bringing my butter to work and letting it soften in the warmer temperatures and then making it right away when I get home.) I even got all my packages sent off and I appear to have magically baked/made the exact right number of caramels and cookies and toffee, although for next year I think I should make the caramels first, as they are tougher to eat directly from the freezer than toffee and buckeyes.

At the end of my yoga lesson yesterday, Satoe threw in a little yoga massage because my back and neck and shoulders were all locked up and I had a massive headache, and she told me that my shoulders were really really stiff and that I should get lots of massages in Chiang Mai. I am choosing to count this is as medical advice that must be heeded.

And now I'd better go get ready for work, although I use the term "work" loosely. My first class will not be a Christmas party as these kids already had one this week and are just doing an extra lesson, but the next two classes are going to be all snacks and card games and insane teenagers. And then I'm done until January 9th!

I made it to the new salon today. I hate hate hate going to a new hairdresser and I may or may not have used the phrase "Remember, they are more afraid of you than you are of them!" as I walked out the door. Happily the results are satisfactory. I had the foresight to put a photo of my last haircut on my phone for visual reference so I wasn't floundering around trying to explain what I wanted. (In all fairness to me, this is not so much a language problem as it is a me-vs-hairdresser problem. I generally cannot articulate what I want and just beg them to make me look pretty.)

He already knew who I was - well, sort of. I guess the fact that there was a foreigner walking past the salon twice a day Mon-Fri and peering curiously in through the windows combined with the English school across the street clued him in. All in all, it was a nice visit. The shampoo bit was heavenly...there is a soft fluffy blanket involved and a head massage. The entire time I kept promising myself that I was going to get a zillion massages in Chiang Mai, because I do love having my head rubbed. Although probably I will opt more for foot massages. Daily foot massages with additional occasional spa days does not sound excessive at all, does it?

I did feel a bit sorry for the assistant, though. She spent such a long time drying my hair, getting it all nice and shiny and perfectly styled, and then I had to leave, into the whipping winter wind. On my bicycle, no less. So by the time I'd finished running errands and gotten home I looked less than salon-fresh.

If you ever find yourself reading about getting a haircut in Japan, you will probably hear a lot of horror stories about how the hairdresser attacked limp gaijin locks with the razoring thingy and left them practically bald. This has never been one of my bigger concerns. He did razor the hell out of my hair, but only after asking permission. And since even shorn, I still have twice as much hair as most people, I said go for it. I'm pretty sure you could have stuffed a throw pillow with the results, and it barely looks like he touched it.

Good news on the Chiang Mai front, I have a place to sleep! For all nine nights, no less. It's less than $20 a night but still more than I was originally hoping to pay, but again, high season, holidays, etc etc. It has gotten mostly positive review online with, of course, the occasional "HELL HOLE! HELLLLLLLLLLLLL HOOOOOOOOOOLE!" review thrown in for good measure but I am hoping that the majority rules in this case. I really only need somewhere safe and clean to crash, I don't intend to spend a lot of time hanging out at the hotel. It's above a pub, but the reviews all claim that the rooms manage to be quiet anyway, so it seems like the best of both worlds. So now I get to spend my time looking up various cooking schools and figuring out what is the best way to hug an elephant.

I totally forgot about tonight's lunar eclipse until I saw a bunch of status updates on Facebook. So then I quickly threw on a warm coat and ran outside, peered at the night sky, went "yup, that's the moon looking funny, all right" and came back inside. If the lunar eclipse really wanted me to admire it, it would have taken place in August.

Sometimes I worry that I have been living in Japan so long that all the weird stuff seems normal now. And then I remember the whole KFC-for-Christmas thing. That will never be normal. Also today I found out about Hatsune Miku, a completely computer generated pop star who performs live concerts. Imagine, if you will, Sailor Moon suddenly appearing in front of you and serenading you. Only she still looks like a cartoon character, not a real person dressed as Sailor Moon. Or just click on that link up there and see for yourself. Warning: it's kind of creepy.

Also in weird news this week: World's Most Expensive Car Crash. Have you heard about this? It's amazing. Nearly $4 million worth of damage to the cars alone! Amazingly, no one was seriously injured, although I bet many of them are wishing for the blissful ignorance being in a coma would bring.

I finally hit the buy button and have a ticket to Bangkok. I still need to arrange transport up to Chiang Mai, but it looks like there are about a gazillion flights every day so that should be ok. Accommodation is proving harder, although it's not really surprising given the time period I'm going for. Ideally I'd like to stay in a guesthouse rather than a hotel, as they are both cheaper and better for meeting other people, but all the good ones are booked already. In low season I would just show up sans reservation and shop around but I think in this case I'd rather have a mediocre place already booked rather than end up in some sleazy dump out of desperation.

Agoda.com keeps throwing up some spa resort thingy that costs 77 000 yen a night. (Easy if inaccurate conversion trick: 100 yen = 1 dollar, then add a bit to the total.) I feel like if you are spending that much money in Thailand that you literally must have money burning a hole in your pocket and you are desperate to get rid of it before you burst into flames. That's the only possible explanation. And the Agoda site claims that that price is actually discounted by 50%.

The new hair salon opens tomorrow! Sadly, they are not offering discounts. They are offering something, but I don't know what it is because I managed to lose the postcard I found in my mailbox. I came home, tossed it on the couch with my bag and headed off to the kitchen, and haven't seen it since. Clearly the house elves don't want me to cut my hair. And I'm not sure what I want to do, exactly. I was all for cutting it and then today I managed to get it into a tiny nubbin of a ponytail. It's not the sort of look that is attractive on anyone over the age of 2, but it works.

Oh look, it is December. When did that happen? I'm pretty sure this is the last month of not freezing my ass off all the time, so I am trying to enjoy that.

Saturday was the annual kindergarten pageant. We did the dress rehearsal on Tuesday and I stayed for the full thing, which was the first time I've seen it from beginning to end. It managed to be simultaneously adorable and excruciatingly dull. My students didn't come on again until the very end, so first I got to watch the babies (costumed, given rattles, sat on the stage and gnawed on said rattles while the teachers sang and danced), the toddlers (my favourite group - the theme could best be described as "controlled chaos"), the slightly older kids (by the age of three they are beginning to grasp the basic concept of the stage and performance) and finally, FINALLY, two-odd hours later, my students. The younger ones dressed up as forest animals and...did something with that, and then the oldest ones dressed up as ants, complete with admittedly adorable paper ant hats, and performed a skit that I think was about a bunch of ants learning to work together so as to make off with some poor bastard's birthday picnic. I did not elect to sit through the whole thing again on Saturday...I got up at 7 am (Seven. A. M. ON A SATURDAY) after having managed roughly four hours of sleep (in addition to the whole "I'm not actually tired yet" issue, once I did go to bed, my brain decided that if I fell asleep I would probably sleep through my alarm. I eventually managed to wrestle it into submission but by then it was too late. Literally.), left the house at 8 in a raging downpour, trudged the 20 minutes to the bus stop, stood at the bus stop all forlorn and damp, made it to the kindy 30 minutes later, got on stage and performed The Wheels on the Bus to a bunch of parents, patted the kids on the head, told them "good job!" and hightailed it out of there. Then I came home and napped for a large part of the afternoon. That part was probably my favourite.

Saturday evening was our cosmetics lesson downtown. She was big on eyebrow grooming. Apparently I should actually own an eyebrow brush, and yet I do not see one making its way into my possession any time soon.

I think I've decided on a holiday plan: I'm just going to go to Thailand from Dec 26th-Jan 5th. Well, I'll fly out on the 6th but as it is a midnight flight I will be spending most of the evening of the 5th at the airport. I've more or less settled on staying in Chiang Mai for the whole time as that will be the easiest and most economical plan of action. I haven't gotten any tickets or anything else official yet, though, and it is making me rather uneasy. Usually I have my Christmas plans sewn up months in advance. We are also trying to set the holiday schedule for next year and it is amazing how quickly those six weeks will get eaten up.