1. Back from the 9-day trip in Thailand. Totally enjoyed the trip, and can’t wait to post the photos and videos up. Most probably will be blogging about the trip in separate posts. Cannot possibly squeeze nine days worth of activities into one blog entry!

2. Started “internship” right after I flew back in Singapore. Yes, it is quoted with inverted commas because I find it a tad embarrassing to say I’m still interning when I have already graduated with a diploma. The term is stated by the company, and since it is good money, I don’t really care how it is being called. I’ll be there only for a month before my degree year starts.

3. Not quite ready for work though. I’m still rather drained from the walking and scorching weather in Thailand.

4. No more scheduled blog entries for the time being.

5. I will probably update in a few days’ time.

6. Imported the archives from jayleif.blogspot.com over here. Lost the hundreds and thousands of archived comments and alot of links will be broken, but nonetheless, I’m a step closer to shifting my entire blog here!

They say trust takes years to built, and seconds to break. It is exceptionally true with regards to what happened this afternoon. My positive impression of Thai people almost skydived rock bottom. It was such a horrid experience that I was badly shaken by it.

Here’s how it went down.

Fabian and I just left Wat Phra Kaew and we crossed the road to the opposite side to check out if there’s anything to see or buy. Right after we were across the road, two Thai locals walked straight to us pushed bags of corn (inedible, those hard kind to make popcorn) into our hands.

The next thing we knew, we were holding the small plastic bags of corn and both the lady and the man were signalling us to pour them on the floor to feed the pigeons. We were taken aback by their offer and kept pushing the bags back to them.

While they kept smiling and signalling us to feed the pigeons, they were also walking further away from us. It seemed as though they were really eager to give the corn away to us and going on to give to the next passerby. It looked like they were doing a voluntary kind of “good deed”. You know, like how in some countries people release birds into the air for good luck?

Of course, all sorts of warning signals were sounding off in our heads, but the both of them were so cheery and smiling all the way. Who can reject a friendly, pudgy middle-aged aunty who looked like she can’t even hurt an ant? And we were right opposite Wat Phra Kaew – a temple, god damn it.

So we emptied the bags and pigeons were all flocking towards us. I was thinking that it was a really good photo opportunity.

All hell broke loose when the last corn dropped out of the bags. Both of them suddenly turned into these two stern-faced corn sellers, changed their course of direction and started charging at us to pay for the corn!

I seriously thought we were in deep shit. The lady cornered Fabian while that guy went straight into my face and said, “We talk one to one.”

I wanted to retaliate by speaking back in Thai, but I couldn’t pull the words out of my head. I have yet to learn what is “you gave me those corn”, “you told me to pour” or “fuck you, I am calling the police”. I just merely mumbled some Thai phrases I knew and he went on muttered a huge chunk of Thai back.

Fabian took out his shades and stared straight into the lady, which scared her a little. He quickly walked away from her and yelled for me to take out my shades too. I did, but I think that guy thought I’d lost some form of authority. He went on to hold my wrist and blocked my way.

“I call police!” he threatened.

“Good, I CALL POLICE!” I yelled back.

He backed a little and I quickly made my way to Fabian. We walked as fast as we could across the street to seek for help. I was pretty sure they weren’t following us anymore but I went to some stranger and asked her how to say “police” in Thai. On hind sight, I didn’t know why I did that instead of simply asking for the police.

The entire ordeal ended as quick as it started but I was still thinking about it on the way back here to our hotel. I was this close to condemn every single Thai people, but after much thought and Fabian’s consolation, I concluded that it is just a one-off incident.

Lesson learnt? Not to easily let your kindness being abused as other’s bait to destroy you. I think that applies to a lot of things in life too.

ix months after my last trip to Bangkok, I’m flying there once again! In fact, by the time this scheduled blog post is published, I would already have landed in the land of smiles!

Anyway, except for Twitter, I realised I haven’t written anything about my encounter with Thailand previously. Tons of photos and stories to share, but that will come another day.

A lot has happened and changed in Thailand, and I’m really hoping this is still the place that I fell in love with just half a year ago. I’m glad that I’m now quipped with conversational Thai, it should come in handy this time round!

I’ll be here from today all the way till 23rd! I hope I won’t go broke! Either that, or my email and RSS feeds explode when I’m back!

P/s: I have scheduled blog entries EVERYDAY until this Friday! Stay tuned!