The Cat Never Sleeps…

Continuing where I left of from the previous post…

Thursday night was the final night I was in Kuching so went to meet up with none other than Sarawak Bloggers’ Cyril for dinner at Aroma Cafe. I think the last I saw him was 2 or 3 years ago – and who can resist a yummy Bidayuh cuisine! (I meant Aroma Cafe by the way, not him, although he is Bidayuh…LOL!)

Anyways, it was good that I was able to meet up with him on this trip.

Why?

‘Cos I was able to meet his friends as well!

See those 3 guys in between Cyril & Rodz? Well, Cyril apparently was joining this Contest organized by Era FM at that time and he brought them EVERYWHERE! =D

(L-R) Iza, Cyril & friends, Myself & Meilin

The Contest has closed since so Cyril, please do update if you win! Even if you didn’t, was honoured to have been “part of” it indirectly…hehehe…and I was just teasing about the yummy Bidayuh thing okay. =p

After dinner, the girls and I met up with another friend, Mel for karaoke session @ Kbox, The Spring (since we didn’t end up going the night before as we just hung around at the Waterfront with my Empowered family instead – which was equally fun. =D)

Apart from family, friends & food…another thing I miss about Kuching has got to be the fact that the Cat never sleeps! There’s always something (that doesn’t involve vices!) to do if you’re out in town, even if it’s till late night or early morning. This time, I stayed out till 1am the next morning…

Farewell Kuching…until next time, stay awesome! =D

Kuching: Another breed of cat

Kuching : The coolest cat in the city – ALWAYS dressed in season.

I’ve always considered Kuching as my home – with good reasons!

From the moment I stepped off the plane Saturday afternoon, I’ve not had a single moment I did not love just being “home”!

My bro picked me up from the airport, took me home just to drop my luggage & we were off to Samarahan - boy has this old haunt of mine changed! - and soon after, to Sunset Mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. Empowered Music Ministry brilliantly served during mass (as they’ve always had), after which we headed to Pending Seafood Centre for dinner.

Hello Oh Jian (Oyster Omelette) – I’ve missed you!!!

On Sunday, went to lunch at Causeway with dear blogger friend Lola…

…before she dropped me off at St Peter’s College (SPC) to visit another old friend. Then, went for drinks at Siang-Siang (we’ve none of these open-air food courts in Brunei..) with ex-classmates back in my Uni days. =)

At 6pm, went “shark-hunting” etc with a “foster brother” of mine before heading to Bau where my “foster family” (whom I adopted when I studied in Kuching almost a decade ago) lives and a night of umai-making (with the shark meat) and BBQ fellowship ensued…felt like I never left!

Umai – or what I describe as “Malaysian Sushi” =p

Monday being a public holiday, my “foster sister” dropped me off at my bro’s and soon I was out again, this time for lunch at Rumah Hijau (first time there) with my Empowered family as most were unable to join the dinner the evening I arrived. Felt so blessed to be able to meet with them again.

The Nasi Ayam Penyet @ Rumah Hijau is really nice!!!

Monday was also the 15th day of Chinese New Year so went with my bro & his family (who are partially Chinese) for Chap Go Meh dinner. Guess where?? Pending Seafood Centre again! Hahaha…no complains. I love the food! =P

Curry Ambal – I’ve missed you too!!!

After dinner, my bro took us on a scenic route around Kuching…a couple of things have changed from the last time I was here last year…and a LOT has changed from the time I used to study in Kuching years before…

Tuesday was a rest-in day as everyone was back to work but come sunset, met up with 3 other ex-Unimates, this time for dinner at Hijau, BDC. Had a good time just catching up & collectively denying how many years we’ve gained since we left Uni. LOL!

And today was an errand-Wednesday (with Laksa f0r breakfast & Chicken Rice for lunch) just sorting out some things while I’m in town…and tonight it’s out again with friends – maybe going karaoke-ing or just chilling by the Kuching Waterfront…

Kuching is indeed another breed of cat (look up the meaning of that here) and home is where the heart is. With Family, Friends & Food all here, what better reasons is there for me to NOT to call it home? <3

That’s where it’s SO @

Friday marked an important date in the history of social media in the country. It was the first-ever Social Media Conference in Brunei!

Titled “Social Media: That’s Where It’s @”, the half-day conference took place at Radisson Hotel.

Remember how excited I was to attend? Well, I did! =)

Registration table where the awesome nametags were. Hehe!

And I brought a friend as well…

Enjoying our morning tea.

Inside the conference room.

There were about 80 delegates from the social media scene in Brunei and Sabah (and 1 from Sarawak, ie. yours truly) who attended the event.

This was my first social media conference so I honestly didn’t know quite what to expect but the moment it started I was having a field trip! =)

Welcome remarks by @emmagoodegg.

“The Backbone for Social Media” – presented by Mr Lim Ming Soon, Telbru.

It was a technical presentation on the infrastructure that supported the whole “online culture” and also some very interesting statistics, like:

18,000 users online in a day just in Brunei (population of 400K) and

The most visited site was Youtube…I would have thought it was Facebook, which was actually in 3rd rank.

Another thing that thoroughly impressed me was how unlike normal conferences, where people just sat, listen, took notes and asked questions, this conference was where most sat, eyes on their smart devices (laptops, phones etc), tweeted what struck them throughout the sessions and asked questions ONLINE!

All “notes” are kept virtually on Twitter where anyone can access them by looking up the hastag #socmedBN – cool stuff!

Questions were posted on PigeonholeLive, and once posted, others can vote on them and the higher voted questions get asked – even cooler!!!

Oddly enough, on this day when everyone had their fingers glued onto their keyboards/keypads/touchscreens, they weren’t being anti-social! In fact, it was pretty interactive as the questions posted and the number of votes were projected for all to see and not to mention, super fun when a highly voted question placed @ranoadidas in the hot seat! =p

@ranoadidas smiling his way out of answering the question in Session 1 : “Dude, Where’s My Traffic?” of how much he earned a month. LOL!

At one point, @BruneiTweet had to defend his love for skinny jeans! =p

And Dinoza of Breeze Magazine Sabah was at a lost for words when asked who was his “social media role model”.

The second session “Why Join The Twitter Conversation?” was also very interesting!

Especially since it was given by Dato Timothy Ong, Chairman of Asia Inc Forum and moderated by Awg Hj Mohd Rozan of bruneiresources.com.

Many many wonderful messages from this great public speaker. My personal faves: “If it matters to you, find the courage to do it!” and “Social media cannot replace human interaction.” Hear hear!

Even lunch was a great “social networking break”!

Pleasantly surprised to see another friend there as well =)

And the food was gorgeous!!!

Noodles in boxes!!!

Noodles never tasted so nice…

Then again, it may just be the novelty of eating noodles from a box! LOL.

The third and final session was “From Idea To Enterprise: What Does It Take?”, another open forum discussion, this time between Mr Keeran of MeSixty and Mr Simon, the Director of Mint and moderated by Mr Tom of Rapidea Solutions Sabah.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much time for this session as it was the end of the conference soon enough. =(

Overall, it was a great event. Good job to the Organizers!

Andrew, Marul, BruneiTweet, Ranoadidas, EmmaGoodEgg, Maurina & Anakbrunei

I’m glad I attended the event. Thanks Sarawak Bloggers for the opportunity! Not only did I learn a couple of things, I also made a couple of new friends! Can’t wait for the next SocMedBN event!!! =D

Last but not least, dear Delwin, may I have the pic of “the four of us” you took please? =)

~~~

Special thanks to @AhimRani of #candidsyndrome for permission to use the amazing pics above! See his full set here.

The recordings for “Brunei Online – Social Media: That’s Where it’s @” is now online 
http://bit.ly/mW2UsH
 thanks to @cornergeeks !