This is a crazy city.
Voted one of the best cities, one of the best travel destinations in the world..., the tourist-favorite "City of Angels" has been raped by its citizens who labeled themselves the Red Shirts.
When it got started, it was generally believed that the demonstrations would not be lasted long. Tight resource and unorganized (compared to the Yellow Shirts), lack of a charisma leaders in their camp are among the reasons. Its spiritual tycoon leader (and suspected to be their biggest sponsor), Mr. T, who are on self-exiled, is too powerless to assert his influences from thousand miles away. Newspapers has continued to play down the organizing capability of the red-shirts and is just a matter of time the strength of demonstrators would diminished.
I naively believed that everything would be okay after I returned from Europe. It actually turned worse after a 15 days holiday from another corner of the earth.
Started largely peacefully in March 14, situation deteriorated in April when people got killed. Causalities did not stop the crazy demonstration but add fuel to the fire.
More violences reported in May while the unrest spread wider. Government announced state of emergency and followed by curfew hoping to curb the demonstration. All measures were proven ineffective in a country that practice street democracy. More people died during the face off, and reportedly a group of armed red shirts were shooting to the crowds to create the chaos.
Closure of office forced me to stay at home. I actually started to stockpile foods and drinks. It was a real joke when my colleague had actually advised me to stock cooking gas just in case of power cut off.
Smoke scene taken from my condo on 16/5/10
Taken from my condo
The same smoke captured from live TV news
See the armored vehicle marching to the epicenter on the right
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