I spent more than one hour yesterday, talking incesstantly to my parents in an effort to get their permission- no, get them to agree to let me go to Bangkok- and it didn't work. Whining, begging, cajoling,I did all of them- until I suspect my parents are secretly employing the help of their internal remote control with the volume button down to zero. They just aren't listening.

In varying ways, they repeated the same points:

Girl ah...
- Bangkok is not safe
- You will listen to strangers and follow them to dark alleys
- Somebody will distract you and you will leave your luggage somewhere...
- people will steal your luggage...
- they will put drugs inside

Yes, such things do happen. But I have to start somewhere, don't I? Countless Singaporeans go there every year and come back in one piece.

I'm highly frustrated. Phoned them 30mins ago and it ended with mum slamming down the phone while shouting in chinese 'you do whatever you want! i cannot control you anymore!'

I feel like a 16-year-old.

Should I just book the tickets? I mean... I'm not even asking for money from them, everything will come from my own pocket, so technically, I have the financial freedom to decide. But there's this nagging feeling that I don't want to make them unhappy. BUT I really wanna go... we found cheap tickets from Tiger airways (a promo which ends today), a reasonably-priced hotel with good reviews... I really want to go. Arghhhhh... and time is running out.

Why are they so difficult?

I asked Xav if she felt that Bangkok was dangerous and she said no. Not at all.

Every place has it's own dangers right? People get killed in Singapore... or get cheated, or get their things stolen too.

Alright forget about it for a while...

Love and I had a huge fight on Sat. The night started happily enough, she met me after work, took a bus down to Holland V to get our steak for the bbq, stopped by Crystal Jade for dim sum supper... and that was it... We sat on some stairs and talked. Sigh... thankfully we made up soon after and she stayed over at my place. Snuddled = snuggling and cuddling (did I raise a few goosebumps?), watched a HK serial. The storm was over.

Woke up the next morning. I was quite apprehensive about letting my parents see her but everything went quite ok. Headed to her house with more groceries for our 2-person bbq. It was great. We battled strong winds, a firestarter that simply refuses to start, and finally... got a good fire that every bbq-lover would be proud of... very nice, red-hot coals.

We had chicken wings, sotong, mozerella cheese wrapped in bacon (which didn't turn out perfectly cos the cheese melted and stuck onto the foil before the bacon was cooked. needs perfecting), hot dogs, cheese sausages (fantastic stuff- the melted cheese will burst delightfully into your mouth), crabsticks, tiger prawns, steak and roasted choc marshmellows. We are going to do it again very soon.

Am going to experiment with a Concubine Chicken recipe given by shifu. Hopefully it will be a successful first time, maybe I can use it as a pieces offering to my parents.