Suwa-dee be mai jeen

As I have obviously not posted in a while and thoroughly missed the western holiday season, it seems somehow serendipitous that I should post again on Chinese New Year.  Because much has happened since you've last hear from me and these can tend to drag on, I'll compress my holidays.
Christmas night was spent with a large group of farang friends at the top of the tallest building in Thailand.  It was a truly impressive buffet with breathtaking views of the megalopolis that is Bangkok accompanied by stimulating conversation and plenty of laughs.  If only they'd have some damn mashed potatoes and gravy!  Obviously being away from friends and family was a change, but then much of this experience has been.
New Year's Eve I went to Central World (a giant shopping complex with several beer gardens bordering it) with some Thai friends.  Basically, it's the Thai equivalent of Times Square.  Once there, we met up with some of the farangs that I went through TEFL with.  Beer flowed, there were several stages with bands, people counted down, and then people set off a tremendous pyrotechnic display.
I was off for a few days and left the city to revisit Ayuttya.  I had a great time with my friends there, including some more fantastic food at Daang-moh's mother's restaurant.  Having that little escape from the city a mere hour train ride away is great.
Following the break, I settled back into the teaching routine.  Then, two weeks ago, I got a mild cold.  My school was closed Thursday and Friday of that week.  Friday was teacher's day, so the schools around the country were slated to be closed and the Thai faculty at my school opted to take the opportunity to close Thursday as well.They all went to Chiang Mai.  There was no invitation extended to the farang teachers.  In fact, we weren't officially informed of any of the closures until Monday of that week.  The total avoidance of communication on the part of my department head continues to frustrated me.
Waking up completely drained and feeling miserable, I rested on Thursday and Friday.  (Though I still managed to drag myself to my Thursday night class.)  As I felt restored by Saturday, I caught a midday bus to Kantanaburi.  It's about an hour city bus ride to the bus station, and then three hours from there.  Buses travel between Bangkok and Kantanaburi regularly, leaving every half hour.  Total transportation costs round trip:  $10.  You've gotta love that.
If you're wondering, why should I care about Kantanaburi?, let me tell you.  It's where the bridge over the River Kwai is.  Yes, that bridge.  Oh, and by the way, the British bombed it.  I know that's not how it was in the movie, but they apparently couldn't get British actors so they modified the script.  That's the theory I'm working with.
There's a river.  There's a bridge. I walked across it.
I absolutely love the fact that there is no safety measure at all.  It's a working railroad track covered with people looking around, taking pictures, and generally not paying attention.  Add to that the fact that there is no 'walking' area (read flat surface), and I'm sure that I'm not the only person who's had a precarious misstep as a flock of Japanese ambled past me.  Praise be to my 'adventure sandals' for saving me from the hundred foot drop into the river.
Having rented a motorbike, I returned to my bungalow on the river and watched the sunset while I read in a hammock.  A massage and dinner at a more than descent Indian restaurant rounded out the evening.  The next day was spent exploring the surrounding countryside.  I was not actually prepared for the amount of outdoor sites and activities available there.  I spent the better part of the day driving around and exploring.  It could easily have occupied me for another couple of days, and it is likely that in the future it shall.  I returned to Bangkok that night.
Unfortunately, Kantanaburi was, pardon my French, fucking cold at night.  Even more unfortunately, my bungalow came equipped with what I can only describe as beach towel to use as a blanket.  So between the lack of sleep, the night in the cold, and the sunburn I managed to acquire while driving around all day, my illness came back with a vengeance.
I have heard from others here that a mild cold that one would recover from quickly in one's homeland can drag on.  That is a fact that I will attest to.  I was a wreck last week.  I didn't properly follow the scientific method to verify my hypothesis, but I postulate that a liter of mucus continued an evasive migration from my sinuses to my lungs and back again.  It seems to have eventually settled in my lungs, which means that I don't have a throbbing headache anymore.  The racking cough seems to be finally managing to evict the last occupants and I am hopeful that my cocktail recipe of two parts antibiotics to three parts cough syrup muddled with a generous sprinkling of cough drops will fortify me soon enough.
As mentioned above, today is the Chinese New Year.  Join me in welcoming in the year of ox.  (In case anyone was wondering, I'm a rooster.)  I don't know exactly what this means yet, but I'm going to look into it more in the coming days.  I do know at this point that the Chinese calender is a lunar/solar calendar that's been used for over four millennium.  That's a lot of human knowledge brought to bear on astrology and astronomy.
Yaowalat is the main street that runs through Chinatown here in Bangkok and I headed there after school today.  Honestly, I was a little disappointed, but it was fun regardless.  I didn't see a parade or anything, and it was more subdued than I had imagined it to be.  I did follow some Chinese dragons and a drum/symbol trio for a while.  I think I also managed to get some adorable shots of children though I'll be going through my photos at a later time.  The food in Chinatown was, as always, delicious. 
On a side note, I have managed to read some fantastic books lately.  Haruki Murakami is still a genius.  I will be reading more Cormac McCarthy in the future.  I also really enjoyed Letters From Thailand.  If you have some time and are a reader, try to track it down.  This was kind of a fun read as well.
Once again, this has managed to eat a considerable chunk of time, and I am hungry.  It is also late, so I must venture from my dwelling in search of comestibles.  Once sated, I shall slumber until I must wake on the morrow.  Please forgive my literary transgression. I so rarely get to manipulate the English language,  in conversation, and Thai is so structurally simple, that occasionally I positively yearn to be verbose.  An intoxicating excess of vocabulary.......