Saturday (Day 3, 10th April) was the Big Day for the wedding couple - T & Matt. It was a big day for all the guests too, who flew in from different destinations and had a terrific party the night before…. apart from the bridal party, everyone had a very slow start to the day thanks to the endless flow of bubbles the night before.

Church wedding at Danang Cathedral was short (for a Catholic service) and lovely - most of the girls got teary-eyed. But Antonia (my room mate at the wedding and also known as the Tongan princess) missed almost all the service as little Belle (10 months old daughter of friends Scott and Kim) was missing her parents and used her vocal chords to full effect.

I went to help Ant later and missed half of the service too, running around trying to distract Belle from crying and getting her away from the service so the guests aren’t disturbed. Hee hee….. she wouldn’t stop for what seemed like hours (it was perhaps at most half an hour and I only helped out in the last few minutes) but as soon as she saw her daddy, she just purred and the tears stopped immediately. WOW.

Everyone was looking very well, especially the Saigon ladies crew (even if I say so of my friends), and we all made the effort to fit the wedding theme of splashes of white and turquoise. Very nice….

Being a responsible adult, I left the party around 11 (it was hot and boogie-ing to the music has left me sweaty to the point where it looks like I showered in my dress) to pack for the big day and found out one of my colleagues from the Tokyo Bureau had died in the midst of clashes between the Red Shirts and government.

I didn’t know him but it didn’t matter. It was still upsetting. And as more and more details of his death and other people came in, the sadder the whole situation became.

So most of Day 4 was spent recovering from the party and reflecting on what is going to happen to Bangkok when I finally get home in two weeks’ time. Road blocks, shootings, calls of social injustice, people storming the parliament - in a warped way it was like being back home 20 years ago but with a major difference being the fact that we had no weapons (apparently the Red Shirts did), no tycoon to urge us on and bankroll us (like Thaksin is doing) and no ulterior motive behind our movements than a genuine desire to get our voices heard (here, both sides are equally as bad as each other, in my opinion, and the rural poor are being caught out in the middle - they do have real grievances that should be heard but I just think the protest leaders are just using them).

It is such a terrible shame. I went to bed with those thoughts, a bit moody, although there was some comic relief when a couple of friends from Saigon got locked out of their hotel rooms and wanted to crash in mine at 3 am. Ant was nowhere to be found and one made up a story that she hooked up with a Maui guy who was at the wedding (he is Fuijian, you fools) and thus will not come back.

I didn’t believe it and sure enough Ant returned not too long after, screaming ‘who the hell is in my bed?’. Hahahahahahaha

Off for the trip proper tomorrow. Without a proper credit card. Because my stupid DBS Mastercard was retained inside the ATM, apparently as they had sent me a new one. How the hell should I know??? I didn’t bring my ATM card either as I was relying on the Mastercard.

This should be fun…. or at least I should find it funny. Ko Bu probably won’t. Hee hee.