and that’s a wrap for 2009!

Happy new year to everyone, I hope you’re enjoying the long weekends as everyone else. New year is often a time for reflection and perhaps a little reevaluation on where we are and where we want to go. For the younger ones, it is also a chance to add a year to their age when asked, but I’ve past that stage quite a while ago, hehe.

Looking back at 2009, there were so much that happened it would be a tough job to remember all of them, but that’s why I have a blog with an archive page that is handy when it comes to this time of the year.

I shall separate the events in categories instead of by chronological order. With what has happened in 2009, I feel that this is going to be a long post.

This blog:
In less than a month I’d have been writing on this spot for 5 years, and amazingly the blog continues to grow.

Over the past year there were over 3/4 million hits and almost 1.4 million page views on kyspeaks.com. I am constantly surprised by the success that was beyond my wildest imagination when I register the URL. I’ve published 203 posts last year, almost 17 posts per month, or 16 if you take out the 12 extra posts from KL blogathon.

Travel:
I don’t think I have traveled as much in a year for non-work related trips as I did in 2009. I went out of the country 8 times, twice each to Australia and Thailand, three trips to Singapore, and once to Philippines. Local trips include Cameron Highlands, Belum Rainforest Resort, and a few trips back to Penang too.

• Feb: Cameron Highland with Mell, Horng, Gareth, Kim, Suan, FA, Bob, and Rachel. This was very eventful, highlighted by the unfortunate accident with Horng’s waja, but it was an awesome trip nonetheless.
• Feb: Showcase Nokia at Singapore, this was my first trip traveling with mostly traditional media to cover an event. I missed the early flight and ended up spending only 14 hours in the republic.
• Feb: Bangkok with Mell, we stayed at Reflections Rooms, a quaint boutique hotel. We had a really wonderful time, memory of tasting the best tomyam by the roadside still makes me salivate.
• April: Oasis concert in Singapore with Gareth, Kim, Horng, and Amanda. It was a day trip and we almost didn’t make it to the show on time, and as it turned out, that was one of the last concerts by Oasis.
• April: I went to Melbourne for the first time to visit Mell and stayed for a week, had the best durian gelato at Freddo. Kerol was on the same trip to visit Margie too.
• May: Heineken Star Final at Krabi with Mell, Horng, and Suan. This was a trip we won from a Heineken event, and Mell tagged along cos we were a loving couple then, hehe. I still remember the size of Horng’s massues, he refers to her as “dinosaur”.
• Jun: Penang with Mell, played the tour guide role and had a wonderful time at places like Fort Cornwallis.
• Aug: 2nd trip to Melbourne to celebrate Mell’s birthday. Spent 10 days this time, and it was mostly cold and rainy but I had a good time nonetheless. We also went to Mt. Buller for a ski trip.
• Oct: Went to Singapore to attend the first ever Nuffnang Awards. Cheng Leong took us to a very nice Teow Chew pork noodle lunch at Ponggol Nasi Lemak Centre.
• Dec: Belum Rainforest Resort with a bunch of other bloggers thanks to BMW & Petronas
• Dec: a 1-day trip to Manila to attend the KL Dragons vs Philippines Patriots

Notable expenditures:
I actually spent quite a lot of money on several items in 2009. Repainted my car following the tragic meeting with the lamb post and getting it overhauled as well as fixing the motorbike cost close to 5 figure in total. I also bought a blackberry, Nintendo Wii, the Canon S90 compact camera, a foosball table, and the mac mini I am typing now.

The two categories above with a couple birthday gifts (including one to mom) altogether cost something like 20k, and lets not think about traveling. I shall try to be more prudent, emmm…

Events and Parties:
There were so many events and parties that I somehow got involved mainly due to the presence of this blog. Life would have been a lot less exciting without them, some of the more notable ones are

• various food review sessions, but unfortunately I had to reject quite a lot of them due to the lack of time.
• Black Eye Peas concert in conjunction with Guinness Arthur’s day  celebration
• Manchester United vs Malaysia XII football game (yes I was wearing a Tiger’s jersey)
• various Nokia’s events, including the trip to Singapore, launch of N97, and their year end party
• quite a few Nuffnang movie screening, including the very entertaining Phobia 2 and Sherlock Holmes
• several Nuffnang events, including Halloween party, Tiger Standout party, Nuffnang Awards in Singapore, and more
• MTG 1 and MTG 2 by Michael, Reta, and Elfie, MTG 2 was particularly crazy
• KL Blogathon 2009
• BMW drive
• and of course, the annual xmas eve party 2009 that was sponsored by Heineken

Personal life and friendship
It was a bit of a roller coaster ride in 2009 for me personally. Mell and I got together early this year and we were together for a better part of 2009. However, we decided that an amicable separation was the best for both of us due to variety of reasons. We still converse online many times a week (as I with Val, my other ex girl friend). I strongly believe that you can still be friends even if you can’t be together. Life goes on, and hey, we had a great time.

2009 also marked a shift in communication channels with Twitter taking off in a major way, and it was with the tool that I came up with the hashtag #porkgang in reference to our affinity with pork. We became a rather close knit bunch, with old time buddies like Gareth, Kim, Suan, Kerol, Horng, Terence, and newcomers in Ruby, Jac, and Eric. Cheesie is a semi-retired member, I don’t know if we should count her in. hehe

It’s a wrap
2009 was certainly very eventful, we shall see what 2010 brings forth. I believe resolutions can be made at anytime of the year and not just at the beginning of a new calendar, so you won’t see any resolutions here.

I do hope to be able to travel more and perhaps to visit at least a new country this year, I already have my ticket to The KIllers’ concert in some 3 weeks time though!