When bloggers meet, we inevitably whip out our digicams and start snapping photos of each other. That was not all. In the midst of smiling for the cameras and chatting, we had a Rubik’s Cube Speed Contest, See Whose Camera Flash Shoots Off Fastest and Who Is Drinking The Most Expensive Water. We bloggers can be a bunch of weird people doing strange things when we come together.
I almost could not make it to the meet. Early Saturday morning, I was knocked off by bouts of fever that got from bad to worse. For the whole of that day, I was either shivering uncontrollably from chills or incoherent in my thoughts. It was that bad. I did not eat for the entire day because each time I tried to sit up, fainting spells would just overwhelm me.
When Wuan got back from work at 8:00pm, I was still in bed. She looked at me straight in the eyes and told me that we will not be going to the meet if my fever persisted. And I was wondering how I was going to explain to those who went and I did not. There was no way I could put up another entry in the state that I was in. Even if I did, those who had planned to go might not read it. What if I recovered enough the next morning?
When I woke up the next morning, I felt better but still weak. I was glad Wuan and I made it there. Twenty of us met at Starbucks, One-Utama. I was really late, arriving at 11:45am when I had set the time at 11:00am. I am sorry to have made you people wait for me. When we arrived at the venue, I saw Adriene and Marita and two of their friends. As I got closer, another group joined us. I could recognise two of them, Kaz and David, from the photos that they posted in their blogs.
The two girls with Marita and Adriene were Chet and Renee. When Adriene was in Penang the last time, I got to meet a cousin I never knew I had. This time around, Adriene met Renee, an ex-classmate whom she has not met for a while. Adriene and I must have this aptness of getting unknown relatives and long lost friends together.
It was truly a great day for me. Now I get to put a face to most of the blogs I frequent. They are Andreas, Redzuan, Fazri, Leo, Albert, Sashi, Jordan, Jess, Edrei, Jocelyn and Grace. Wuan, Renee, Little K (Jocelyn’s daughter)and Leen (Jordan’s wife) were the non-bloggers there that morning.
I was surprised and heartened by the large turnout. You all came with just an invitation through my blog. I am truly moved. Thank you guys and gals, for spending your Sunday morning and afternoon with me. Although we did not have the time to really get to know each other at this gathering I hope that we can continue to foster this new found friendship through our blogs, bloggers meets, emails and IM. This has been a wonderful weekend and most probably the highlight of my trip to KL. Blog on mates!
Who won the contests? I do not know about the first two but Jordan won hands down for drinking the most expensive bottle of water that day. Jordan, there is no prize for that except the bragging rights to the price you paid for that tiny bottle of water. Perhaps you should have kept that plastic bottle as a trophy? After the meet, we had another contest – The Fastest Blogger Meet Poster. While I was still busy window shopping with Wuan, Marita and Chet, Andreas had already got details of that meet up in his blog. Andreas, I have no prize for you either but a few useless MT tips that you can probably fish from the forums anyway. You can pick it up from me anytime.
Read the following for their account of the meet:
Andreas’ Bloggers Meeting In Starbucks
Jordan’s Invasion Of The Bloggers!
Chet’s What A Day
Dave Yoong’s Persatuan Persaudaraan Bloggers
Edrei’s Gathering After The Darkest Night
Leo’s 1Utama Bloggathering and photos.
Fazri’s Meet The Bloggers and photos.
* The rest of the images will be uploaded when I get back to Penang.
I thought I had listed all the non-bloggers, so who is Little K? Then I remembered – JustMe’s little girl, lah!
BTW, JustMe’s name is spelled Jocelyn.
Safe journey home, Peter.
Chet,
Thank you for pointing the correct spelling to Jocelyn’s name. I am not going back so soon, well not in another one week or so. Maybe we could bump into one another again.
And I got the right spelling of Adriene’s name from your entry. Thanks. 🙂
It was really cool meeting you, Peter.
Thanks for initiating the meet-up! I hope you recover completely from the fever soon too.. 🙂
Chet,
You are welcome.
Sashi,
I also thought you were a Japanese until I saw a photo of you somewhere, most probably in your blog. I cannot recall now. I appreciate that you came even though you had to go to the office that morning. Thank you. It was really nice meeting you. I hope we can do this again some time.
haha. sashi’s name sound like sushi so i guess people thought he japanese. 🙂
peter, see i told ya’ many would turn out to meet you. congrats for initiating a successful meet!
looking forward to your photos (not only of the bloggers meet but visit to KL in general) and stories.
btw, when will you be back to penang?
I WOULD have won that fastest Blogger Meet post just that I didn’t have a Hotspot account!! Accursed Starbucks!!
Keep it cool Peter, glad that you got better. No problems about being slightly late. We all had a good time anyway…so that’s a great thing in the end.
Hope we all can do this again sometime soon enough…:)
edrei …edrei …. hahaha …. trying to get online ^^,
anyway it’s good to meet up with you Peter, it was an honor. If i do come down to penang for char kuay teow…i will look for you.
Accursed Starbucks? Not their fault. There was TMNet hotspot. You just don’t have an account, is all.
Lucia,
It was great. These KL bloggers are the nicest lot of people – very polite, very courteous and very fun to be with. I will be going back to Penang at the end of this month. Meanwhile, try not to grow any grey hair while waiting for the photos.
Edrei,
Ada laptop, ada wifi card, no access pulak. Geramnya. And itu Andreas, balik cepat-cepat dia blog. Tarak kasi chan langsung. Never mind lar. Kalau you mahu tips MT, saya bagi juga.
Thanks for your concern. I am much better now. If not I could not have spent the whole day at One Utama. Truly sorry again for my lateness.
Leo,
It was an honour meeting you too. When you come to Penang of course must look me up lar. Char koay teow, laksa, hokkien mee, you name it, all no problem. Asalkan got transport, I will take you there.
🙁 So sad I couldn’t be there. Had an appointment I couldn’t cancel. Sigh!
Bkworm,
There is always another time.
Glad to have met you and Wuan, even though it was brief! Take care and get well soon. 🙂
Jess,
We are glad to have met you too. I thought I better not interrupt you because you were watching they guys having a go at the Rubik’s Cube. I am almost fully recovered from the fever. Thank you.
hey pete! nice talking to you last sunday 😉 didn’t know you were down with fever. should have informed all of us ya know. 😛 btw, i can’t see myself in the picture! haha
Dave,
You told me more about your field of study actually. I enjoyed that short discourse very much. I was feeling much better by then. I have gotten fever so often that it is nothing new anymore. I will upload more photos to my gallery when I get back to Penang and you can see a more shots of yourself.
Aiyoh, Dave was so obvious with his SLR … like paparazzi rep, like that. That’s why less in front of the camera, lor.
hey pete! it was great being able to meet you and the rest last sunday! be seeing you around more in such events in the future hopefully! 🙂
dJ,
It was great meeting you too. I sure hope I can join you guys again when there is another meet. Tak sabar menunggu. Hey, Pot Cit still rocks, you know?
hahaa! now that you mention it, the next time we meet, instead of over coffee or something, make it over some pot cit! lol!
dJ,
We make everbody drink too. After all, it is good for their urine pH. It is a deal then.
erm…excuse my ignorance, but what’s pot cit? 😛 *scratching head*
Dave,
It is short for potassium citrate and is something good. It alkalises your urine and helps prevent the formation of kidney stones. The taste is really out of this world.
In regards to the guy harvesting ‘precious’ stones, does your body absorb caffeine, or is it discharged evidently by its odor? I suffer from the latter case. I wonder if pot cit (‘trate pot sounds cooler donchathink) will help me with my symptom.
Albert,
There are certain kinds of food, like durians and petai, that will make my urine smell of it. I suppose coffee too but I seldom drink coffee so I will not know. I also do not know if food odour in the urine is a normal or bad thing healthwise. Pot cit is an alkaliser for people who have abnormal acidity in their urine. I also do not know if it will work to clear your symptoms but barley water works fine to flush your urinary system every once in a while. ‘trate pot sounds funky but I do not want people to be thinking that I am some sort of junkie. 🙂
sorry for reading this so late. I just returned to work today. I’ve enjoyed meeting you Peter and Wuan. Now I know why you are nuts about her. Tee hee!
JustMe,
It was nice meeting you too, and Kelly. 🙂
Hi Peter: just surfed in your site via PenangBloggers (yes, I am a Penang blogger too)
Glad you had fun in the bloggers meet – I couldn’t go since I had my internship here =)
ps, didn’t know you were from Holy Spirit Cathedral, have a friend there~
Jinny,
We had great fun. Maybe you can join us in the next one.
I will be going back to KL for my new semester next month, if at any time there’s another blogger’s meet between Feb-November, I might be there =)
Jinny,
Do try to make time to attend. Bloggers are really fun people to hang out with.
Ah bloggers meet, it has been a while since I’ve been to one. I was almost blinded by camera flashes most of the time.
Vlad,
That was what happened this time around. It was just like a major press conference. We all felt like celebrities. It was fun though.
I just moved to Sungai Buloh area and would appreciate it if you could provide me the address of the nearest catholic church in that area. thanks.