One day after the BERSIH 3.0 protest in central KL (and basically everywhere around Malaysia), we, namely members of the Nottingham Buddhist Society, abbreviated as NBS, set off in a convoy of
BYND:
The BYND was organised by the Buddhist Gem Fellowship and the Shah Alam Buddhist Society... I think. Rather than a networking day, it was more like a half-day camp, as it lasted from 8.30am to 4.30pm. We were lucky enough to have the venerable Ajahn Brahm with us as a speaker. He was really interesting, and I honestly felt that I learnt a lot from him. Besides that, we had a discussions session about some problems. I joined the "Dealing with Pressure" session. Well, I guess everyone in the group were pressured, because everyone was so quiet. After some time, finally some people started to speak and got the ball rolling. I bought a nice red shirt with the words ":) Don't Worry, Be Happy" (which was the theme of the day) printed on it. We had free vegetarian lunch and they gave us some instant noodles as a complimentary gift before we left. At the end of the BYND, the NBS members got ready to go to our main event of the day: The BGF Charity Dinner: Don't Worry, Be Happy.
BGF Charity Dinner:
"Don't Worry, Be Happy". The wise words of Bobby McFerrin were used as the theme of the dinner. Upon reaching the HGH Convention Centre in Sentul, KL, we immediately went to the nearest rest room to clean ourselves up. After that,
Yup! All of the guys got into formal attire, while the ladies wore traditional baju kebaya, as we were to be the ushers for the night. Man, I think I mentioned it before, but guys in formal wear look damn good. (Photos to be coming soon, hopefully. As soon as See Chew uploads them. Also, one with Link Er and I )
At any rate, I was positioned to welcome the VVVVVVVIPS (All those Datos' And Datins' and Tan Sri and etc) at the main entrance. Wow! Talk about tension. Well, they were all really nice people at any rate. Smiling as I opened the door for them and pointing them to the right places. Hoho. But dayum, was I hungry by the time our outside duties were done. We were given three tables to eat at. Wow, the food was really good. I met two really nice people, William, a chemical engineer (in a month's time, at any rate) and Pei Siah (I don't know how to spell her name =/ ), a working lawyer. Every now and then we were supposed to walk around and help the guests with anything they need, like accepting donations and stuff.
Some highlights of the night:
Ajahn Brahm's talk, it was really interesting.
Peranakan skit.
Choir.
After the night ended, we formed two lines at the main exit and bade farewell to all the guests. After the event was officially over, we helped to clean the place up a little, by packing up the items, boxes, stones and et cetera. Then we took to the stage and had some nice photos together.
After that, we were given some food to bring back home. The curry puffs were really good, by the way. It was around 12.15am when we finally took off from the HGH convention centre to go back "home".
We arrived back at roughly 1.00am and I went to bed.
