From Strangers to Regular Meet-ups

As far as being on Steemit for three months, I'm amazed at how friendships can be built transcending our origins. Tonight I met up with one person whom I'm eager to meet for a while, for we have the same name (real name) and we marry our husbands who happened to have the same name too. It is none other than another Connie, @viverridae, though I also wish I can meet @danieldoughty too! On top of that, I also got to meet @veenang and @gelfire!

From left: @danieldoughty, @viverridae, myself and @danielwong. Hehehehe @danieldoughty's photo credit to @kulasago, had to find a photo of him that looks like he is standing to 'cut' him out to 'paste' into our photo to make it more 'complete'. Only then, it will be a picture of (from the left) Daniel, Connie, Connie and Daniel. Forgive my self-entertainment, lol.

Original photo without the addition of @danieldoughty, Hehe.

Introducing Connie and Connie 😜

Because of them coming over for their event all the way from another state in Malaysia named Sabah, we called up an informal casual Steemians meetup at @bighugin, the burger place which accepts payment in Steem. Also present were @littlenewthings, @karinzdailygrind, @orangila, @joannewong, @aaronleang, @zord189, @danielwong, @littledrummerboy and @bethrao.

Like the previous times, when my son arrived at the place seeing many faces, he suddenly became shy and couldn't engage with the rest immediately. So, he took some time to warm up and again observing them from a distance. Thank God, @orangila who seemed to know how to relate with children came to ask him for high-fives, fist-bumps and @littledrummerboy let his guard down gradually.

We started off ordering our dinner as the others were also browsing the customized Steem menu. I ordered for myself tonight the boneless fried chicken with fries and drink.

Juicy tender fried chicken! I love it because it was tasty and BONELESS!

While waiting for food, I thought we could take a selfie first (without @zord189 and @bethrao who were still on their way).

My selfie attempt failed actually, cause I missed out @gelfire who sat way behind. Sorry!

Chit-chatting and laughing away.

You know the burgers are good when you see the owner of the burger place sank his teeth into the burger this way! Hehe!

We were very happy and noisy! There was a lot of laughter going on, despite everyone actually just finished work or had a long day.

As @zord189 and many other master shi-fu have said, the key for Steemit is to engage, engage and ENGAGE! Even if one is an introvert, he or she can still be able to feel included in today's setting. Though I am not considering myself as an introvert, but sometimes, I tend to shy off when I do not really know the people around me, but not around them. They have the ability to make me feel comfortable being a part of them. They will "melt any ice" within you, hahaha. Of course, I was thankful to @littledrummerboy who was happily eating his fries and laughed along with us. He too was engaging, okay? Being the youngest Steemian, he made some new friends and started sharing his "passion aka iPad" with them.

Here @littledrummerboy was sharing with @orangila about Mickey Mouse, I think. Thank you @orangila for taking interest in his activity that he felt comfortable to even bring his iPad over to watch together with you.

Next, he let @aaronleang carry him. You should watch @joannewong's and my faces in disbelief! Lol.

Then, when we went upstairs, @zord189 asked to watch videos with him and he agreed. He was actually moving towards me but when he heard @zord189's request, he went back to @zord189. So they were talking about the video he was watching.

Everyone seemed to be attracted to the biggest teddy bear in @bighugin, so the group photo with the bear became compulsory. You should see how many phones were passed to the staff to help us take the group photos. So, everyone has our own copy in our phone!

The group photo with everyone. (Behind row from the left) @gelfire, @littlenewthings, @joannewong, @karinzdailygrind, the bear, @viverridae, @veenang, and @danielwong (Front row from the left) @orangila, @aaronleang, @zord189, @bethrao, me and @littdrummerboy.

The guys showing some love for the bear?

The ladies who were always ready to jump in for a group photo.

After all the photo taking, we went upstairs for elaborate chit-chat within groups to chat about everything. Be it Steemit tips, to just knowing each other more, we were enjoying ourselves and didn't know time was passing. I had a good chat with @orangila to know him better, that his mom is from my hometown, Kuching too. While we were talking, uncle @zord189 was having his time with @littledrummerboy. I was telling @littledrummerboy earlier that uncle @zord189 is the animator behind the famous Doc Mcstuffins! Well, I was more excited about that than him. He was basically excited about his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse only and he watched it with the great animator who did the Mcstuffins!

The four guys who were talking very long in their group.

Another group who were talking about different types of initiatives on Steemit.

The girls who were very engaged in talking from standing to sitting down.

I am actually quite touched by some who came from further locations all the way to Setapak for this meetup such as @orangila who came all the way from Kajang, @zord189 from his workplace in Subang (if I am not mistaken), @joannewong who came after work and @littlenewthings too who came after handling some personal matters. They really went the extra miles for meet-ups like this. This makes me realize that we can be passionate about Steemit. They have been the most supportive people of @bighugin, the initiative started by my husband @danielwong. Thank you all, for the support and coming by!

We talked about crytocurrency and also the acceptance of people around us towards Steemit that some of those around us are still being skeptical about this platform, thinking it could be a scam or something. I guess real meet-ups like this would help a lot to know we actually put effort into it and we have learnt many things through Steemit, besides gaining some many new friendships. What I always feel when I'm around them is, though we were strangers, we could actually talk and have common topics, as if we know each other a long time. Besides that, some of them also talked about how to build this platform and benefit the community. I mean strangers coming together to work something out? Wow! Steemit has really expanded and extended me to further reach so many other people, locally and internationally.

We finally left earlier because my son was showing signs of being sleepy. I was actually anticipating that he would sleep earlier so I can work on this post but he did not fall off to sleep much earlier, just slightly earlier than usual, haha! The night was still young, hence some of the rest went for their Round Two!

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. ~Henry Ford
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Hope you enjoy reading about my meetup with fellow Steemians who are awesome people. As for the others from #teammalaysia, hope to meet the rest of you one day too. Also for those from overseas, if you happen to drop by Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I would love to meet you as well!

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