the bloggers meet

the 5 who stayed until the end, enjoying their dinner right there at pelita. clockwise: joyce, bk ong, jasdev, jasdev’s big baby (laptop lah!), chee aun and me.
(note: all together there were 11 of us present, including me. 2 were non bloggers).

i arrived at pelita at 3.45 and as expected nobody were around yet. stood outside walkng up and down. then at 4.05, peter tan arrived with wuan and teh, who was armed with a very profesional looking videocam. he started shooting when we were seated even though there were 3 of us only.

all heads in pelita turned when (no, not a curvaceous sexy lady) a man with long beard and long hair showed up with a caucasian lady. i recognised him at once… the one and only bk ong from SOS penang (save ourselves) and who runs the website malvu (malaysian voters union). he brought along joyce, who is from UK (no, not ulu klang but UK the country) but is currently in penang helping ong with some of his works.

to continue reading, please click on ‘jog over for more’.

ong handed to us the 4 page paper ‘oops’ a community paper for S2BJ. (sungai dua, bukit jambul), published by SOS penang. this paper is for private circulation (monthly) and highlighted issues faced by the community. ong also gave us the S2BJ calendar where there are useful tel. nos. on where to complain e.g. housing matters, claims, police, corruption.

then later on ks tang arrived, followed by ee yean. teh, who had to leave soon at 5.00pm, said that we should introduce ourselves and tell why we came here and what we expect. before teh left, he again took out his impressive videocam from the bag, and gave a final shot before he left!

btw, you can catch the video make by teh here.

jasdev came together with chee aun one hour late – after 5.00pm. well both of them stays at the mainland, so i guess they had a good excuse. it’s good of them to come all the way from across the sea. it seems that quite a number of people who stays at the mainland, look to crossing the sea to the island as very far, and thus gave excuse they can’t attend. well, as i stated somewhere, it’s a matter of priority and interest, not distance.

ong make sure that he gives out the SG2BJ paper and calendar to everyone who turned up, while the nice couple peter and wuan make sure that we were not exhausted, what with our constant chatter, when they reminded us to order our drinks (and i had 2 glasses of my kopi-o-peng kau cheah!). peter and wuan were also so kind to foot the bill for the drinks. thanks a heap peter, wuan!

kew (or ang as his known by his surname), dropped by for just a while. (btw, he has another blog… more for posting of photos here). he just came from a taiping trip, and it was nice of him to drop by. he did not even have the time to sit down to chat but stand next to the table to update us on the penang bloggers portal, of which he owned and started. we did not really have time to suggest to him what we have in mind since he was in a hurry to get back. anyway, after he left, we did discussed among ourselves regarding the penang bloggers portal.

ee lean and kstang left i think around 7.00pm (different time), while at 8.00pm, the rest of us remaining decided to have our dinner. peter said that the food at pelita were too spicy for him so he and wuan left for another coffee shop near where he stays (which is near pelita), while the rest of us (ong, joyce, jasdev, chee aun and i) ordered some food to eat while continuing our chit chat.

we had an enjoyable time chit chatting just about anything from blogging to video conferencing, college studies to overseas trips, social issues and politics (esp. from ong and joyce). since joyce was seated next to me, i chatted to her more. i found out a surprsing fact from her, when she said that the police in UK are very racist and there is no democracy in UK! what an eye opener!

the most talkative person was none other than the lively jasdev. he was the one and only one who turned up for the last meet i organised on 9 june last year. he brought along his laptop and he ‘curi’ my digicam SD card to load the photos taken into his laptop. only peter and i bought along our digicam. of all people, kstang, the one who puts up a lot of photos on his blog, forgot to bring his digicam. memory cell down? 🙂 but never mind, since all photos taken will be posted up and we can all share and share alike the photos.

we had also put forward suggestion for the next meet, especially on the venue. pelita was a good, large, comfortable place but it was a bit noisy, being an open air concept restaurant and a popular one too. ong suggested the ‘mandarin tea house’ in the place where the cat and the mouse live (jalan kucing, off pulau tikus lah). jasdev suggested a public place like the beach or youth park (er… now known as municipal council park lah)! oy jasdev, you need a big place to run around in case you are bored with us? haha! the thing is with jasdev around, we won’t be bored. hint, jasdev, hint. you’d better come for the next meet… even if you are in KL. fly to and fro! no i don’t mean you to turn into superman, i mean to use air asia.

the 5 of us who stays back for dinner, left pelita at 9.00pm. wow! this means we were at pelita for 5 hrs! i thanked all those who turned up, and hopefully at our next meet, not only will you turned up again but you will bring along your friends (bloggers or non bloggers) too. and to all those bloggers who had missed this meet, do make sure that at the next meet, you will be able to attend.

more pictures of the meet from my digicam can be found here.

read about the others account of the meet:
peter tan
bk ong
chee aun