Entries this day: Do_Today hot_springs

Do Today

9:32am ICT Monday 2 August 2010 (day 14740)

1. print grid and otp docs for Fred

2. go eat lunch with Linh

3. borrow Linh's phone and call Elle

4. coordinate time to get fabrics

5. go get Johnny

6. hang out with Claire

7. package prezzies and printouts for Fred

8. send them to Fred

hot springs

6:47am ICT Tuesday 3 August 2010 (day 14741)

After school yesterday, Dot's class went to hot springs near Chiang Mai. Though I'm not in the class, Dot invited me and I was happy to join because I had never been to this part of the city. (It's far enough away that it's probably not Chiang Mai, but I didn't hear a different name.) We had enough people to fill two vans. I sat beside Andreas and his girlfriend Anh. Andreas, from Italy, and I talk talk talked all the way, taking funny pictures of U-Cow, including with U-Cow leashed with Andreas' long dreadlock, etc. Anh, from Thailand, was acting shy, but we got a picture of her with U-Cow as well.

We had just over two hours to play at the hot springs when we arrived 10 mins before 5pm. From what I could tell, they've got a couple of geysers, one of which continually fills a small pool with near boiling water (95 C?), and the other which continually sprays into the air, and then flows down a little trough in the ground in which people can rest their feet or swim.. ... Hmm now that I think about it, swimming is probably not encouraged, but I swam in it a bit.

But first, I went with the bulk of the group to the far end of the trough to go where swimming was encouraged, for the mere price of 50 baht. The pool was not directly fed by the trough, but by warm water pouring from a faux rock structure made to look like a cliff with waterfall spilling over a cliff. The water was hazy with particles, though I know not what. Several of us romped around in the water and took pictures with U-Cow, including a cool one with water spiraling off him as he spun flippingly in the air. He was visually in front of Olivier in the background, which is cool, but made U-Cow a bit more difficult to see.

I sough hotter water, so walked to the hot end of the trough, and nearly busted by ass walking *in* the trough, but arrived alive and intact where several people in a group took pictures with U-Cow, and pictures of me and U-Cow, including swimming in the pretty hot water (40+ C?).

I talked with a man from Taipei who told me retirement at 55 in Taiwan requires one to have worked in the same company for 25 years. Wow! I wonder how the federal government benefits from having people stay in one company... He was retired from chemical engineering work which had him working with Japanese companies, so he and I spoke a few sentences in Japanese.