After the Taste Asia 2 event, another blog meet happened. It was a spur of the moment thing and was all fun. I bet you didn’t know did you? It was hush-hush.
It happened in what is fast becoming (or is) the Wi Fi city of the Philippines: Davao!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love being in Davao because of the fruits, fresh air fresh catch, and most of all because of its friendly and warm people.

The Davao Bloggers are no exception.

Despite the sudden downpour, I met up with Ria, Andrew (both came in from the rain), Jun M, Dom and Blogie at Hoovenson’s “geekville” SPRO Coffee Shop. I also got to meet Ayeza of Bisayabloggers, who happened to be there with some friends.

Dominique, Ria, Blogie, Andrew and me. (Jun M. had to go home and give his brother the keys to his room but promised to come back.)

Dominique, Blogie (with his trademark beret/cap), Jun M (who came back) and me. Ria and Andrew went ahead to a party.
They were very accommodating as we discussed the Mindanao Blogging Summit, their blogging activities and then some.
The topics swung from blogging, to tech, to education, to books, to personalities, work, the Davao blogging, Mindanao blogging and the apparent lack of a Cebu blogging community, to Manila-based bloggers and so on. They were all passionate about blogging and their respective advocacies.

Dom brought out his Uno cards, but forgot the manual. Thanks to Google and SPRO’s free Wi-fi and Wikipedia, we were up and running in no time. Of the four rounds, I lost two. Ria was grrrr-ing at Jun M, Andrew and Dom who made it hard for her to win.

So she vented her angst on me and won. Darn those draw cards. I could say I let her win, but I lost again after she left so it wan not a fluke even if i wanted it to be. In other words, I’m lousy (or unlucky) with Uno.

Next time, Guilottine na lang Dom. But I definitely had fun. As the evening wore on, Dom showed some of his wares: World of Warcraft Trading Cards and Talecraft, which apparently are the brainchild of a Filipino (including the artwork) - which are good for creative story-telling and writing. (I really think Talecraft has a great educational potential for communications subjects. I was supposed to bring home a deck but I forgot. Arrrgh!

The talk shifted like sand in the desert so to speak. From the state of Philippine education, the Omega Man, Nightfall, Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Jordan, we could have spent the whole evening until dawn and we would have never run out of things to talk about. Oh, and did I mention that Jun M’s blog traffic spike because of his MF post and he eventually exceeded his bandwidth? And that Blogie didn’t even know what it was about, who just like me rarely watch TV and read the newspaper. (I say, if something gets bad enough, somebody will eventually tell you about it. Like this one.)
It was a pleasant experience meeting the cream of the Davao blogosphere. I am willing to bet that the PR machines will be getting in touch with these guys soon. With the 1st Mindanao Blogging Summit on October 27 in Davao City, their part of the country may become known as the Premiere Blogger’s Destination of the Philippines.

Thanks a lot and i hope to be back soon.