Yesterday afternoon, there was a bit of a shock in front of my condo--the riot police. The Red Shirt demonstrators had been close to my area for the past several days, but yesterday, they moved further down the street, parking themselves right in front of my building. It was a bit scary to see a large crowd of Red Shirts challenging the Thai riot police, but luckily, within two hours, both groups retreated. I took a picture for the nice memories...^_^
The result of the Red Shirts' protests have been:
-closure of one BTS (Bangkok Transit Skytrain?) station,
-closure of many malls downtown,
-blocked arteries, preventing many cars from moving through the city smoothly.
In the evening, I took in a movie -- my first in Thailand. I had read that people have to stand for the King's anthem before every movie, and I experienced just that. It was actually quite touching; during the anthem, they show images of the King, from his youth, to his current age.
I paid for "special seats", which cost 300 B each. These seats were wide, with a deep cushion, and your own armrests (2)! But the biggest shock was at the movie's end: ushers flash lights at you and yell for you to basically, "get the hell out". It was a big difference from the Japanese theatres, where EVERYONE stays to watch the full credits. Aw well, I both had a good laugh over that.
I walked through Queen's Imperial park to P-Kitchen (one of my favorite hangouts) for dinner--2 side dishes, with 2 plates of rice and 2 beers cost 220 B. Nice!
