Day of the Kitchen God, and another mouse encounter

Today is the day that the Vietnamese honor their kitchen God. There are a couple ways to do this, but I will begin by explaining the story behind this God. Apparently, the kitchen God, or genie, is present in every kitchen, where they watch over the daily happenings. On the 23rd day of the 12th month, the kitchen God goes up to heaven to report on the past year of kitchen activity. Most importantly, he is said to ride up to heaven on the back of a fish (not sure why...). So, on this day (today) kitchen genies are offered the best food and spices and are presented with money. Walking around today, one would see a lot of money and paper fish being burned so the God can take them with him on his journey. Additionally, it is also custom to release a fish into a nearby lake to provide the God with transportation to heaven. There's been a lot of bicycle fish vendors on the streets as of late, and it's always a sight to see; tiny, rickety bikes are strung with bamboo sticks and string which are used to hang bags of fish. Since my kitchen is pretty much part of my living room, I think I will wait until the day of the house genie to burn things.

On a completely different note- I had met up with my pal Julia in the Old Quarter last night for a quick drink at our favorite watering hole, Mao's. We had parked our bikes outside the bar, next to a pile of garbage that always accumulates there during the evening. After a chat, we got on our bikes, and both went our separate ways. All was fine until I felt something wriggling around on the back of my neck, along the top of the collar of my coat. First I thought I was imagining things, but sure enough, I felt movement there again when I came to a full stop at a train crossing. I brushed my hand along my neck, and a mouse flung from it's perch on my coat collar, landed in the street, and took off. Obviously this was incredibly disgusting, but I was more concerned with how this mouse got there in the first place. This is where the garbage heap comes into play, because I guess it's possible that it had crawled into my helmet and sat terrified against my neck while I was driving, and only started to move when my bike came to a stop. The other possibility is that it fell off an overhead wire (this happens often), and I was lucky enough to be directly below it, where it landed on the back of my neck. I would hope it is the latter, since the idea of giving a mouse a free ride on my neck is definitely worse. Either way, I got home and took a very hot shower, using A LOT of soap. Unfortunately, hot water runs out within four minutes of turning it on, so it was a bit more rushed than I would've liked, especially since my house is around 60 degrees and being in the shower is the only time I can feel warm. The lack of insulation is really making me feel Hanoi winter. Maybe I should walk along the street stopping at people burning stuff for the kitchen genie to get some warmth?