"2010 VT Party" Personal Page by asianbelle

Sometime in November 2009, we found out that VT's GM, Giampiero6, more popularly known as Mr. G, is coming to Manila along with VT's founder, Tilman, and Shella (girladventure) during the Christmas holidays. And with the local members being busy either with travels or with work (plus the typhoons and floods that struck Metro Manila), we decided to skip the annual Christmas Party and instead celebrate the season with a post New Year Party when Mr. G and friends arrive.

Shella posted the meeting announcement: January 8, Makati City.

The road to the venue was tough :) With the list of attendees growing in number daily, we had a difficult time choosing the appropriate restaurant. With the dinner date drawing near, Miko patiently conducted an ocular visit to all the restaurants in our shortlist. And with 2 days left before the big day, the only place that can hold at least 40 persons in a single group is Bacolod Chicken Inasal Jupiter. We were given a function room which we "filled up to the walls" on the actual day.

It was a long shot :)

To approximate the size of the shirt, we "judged" them from pictures and videos on their respective pages. Well, it seems we were not that far off; the shirts seem to fit them :)

Miko initially thought of having the waiters don the colorful "masskara masks" while serving our food. But carrying the weight of each mask while moving around will surely give the waiters a hard time. So Miko relented and just had the masks displayed, but available for anybody to have his/her picture taken wearing them.

Which was exactly what Mr. G, Tilman, Shell, Stefanos... and the rest of the VT members did.

Again, with 2 days remaining before the scheduled dinner, Monina suggested having a cake with VT logo, miniature jeepney and 2010 candles on it. On short notice, Jane was able to order the cake while Cess produced the blue Manila jeepney.

When we asked Mr. G to blow the 2010 candles, it was merely to signify the start of the year. However, Mr. G gamely explained that it has another meaning --- Virtual Tourist was founded in January 2000, making this year (and this month) its 10th anniversary. Cheers!

As expected, the moment one member brings out a camera, the rest follows. We had to ask 3 waiters to take our photos as the first one cannot cope with the highly demanding VT Pilipinas members.

I guess, our guests were surprised to find a bunch of "kodak addicts".

Jon's travel friend, Gugito, made his first public and VT appearance in this meet. He was an instant hit and even made 2 new friends.

What a timing!

Yana (melek02) spent 3 weeks touring different parts of the country and was set to head back to Russia on January 9. So, as she wrote on the miscellaneous forum thread, she was hoping that the dinner will be moved to January 8 (from its original date of December 29) as it will be only night she'll be spending in Manila. What a way to spend it!