We just had one of our most fun and most delicious meet-ups in a long time. It’s our Malaysia Local Guides community virtual foodcrawl gathering on a Saturday night, where each of us are physically socially distancing ourselves from others in a time to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. This meet-up allowed us in 5 countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Dubai UAE) to connect and have a weekend dinner together.
Malaysia started a preliminary partial movement control order lasting 2 weeks from 18th-31st March. People in the entire country as requested to stay as much as home as possible, and only permitted to go out to get essential supplies, and to socially distance ourselves as much as possible. Many of us are bolted up at home, and a few of our community members had gone back to home country for the time being.
As part of keeping our Local Guide community spirit alive, we had arranged for our first virtual foodcrawl of sorts. Each of us were to cook a meal, or to purchase something from outside where possible, and join in a virtual community Hangouts session to have dinner together, and to chat about all the things going on at the moment, as well as updates of our application to Connect Live 2020.
Our virtual meet-up RSVP link : https://maps.google.com/localguides/meetup/malaysia-lg-virtual-food-crawl
[Photo above] One of our sisters from Jakarta Indonesia, Devi @Ddimitra had prepare home made pasta with bell peppers and sausages. It was fun seeing her munching away as we updated ourselves on what is happening in our countries. Devi is always happy, which makes our whole group happy.
[Photo above] Pavel @PavelSarwar is back in Bangladesh for a bit of time, and he also had created localized pasta dish joined by his brother in law. We in Malaysian haven’t seen Pavel for a bit of time now. And at the moment, no inward travelling into the country is possible. So connecting virtually gave us a great opportunity to catch up on things.
[Photo above] Our expert photographer Nabeel @nabeeltirmazi had made a Pakistani dessert of milk and vermicelli. He was happily eating whilst we were chatting about updates to our application for Connect Live. He was going to put in his application in a few days.
[Photo above] Chee Weng @Cweng had opted for a super spicy bowl Ramen. I personally had eaten that before with disastrous effect on my stomach. He loves that. The man with an iron stomach we call him. Even Chee Weng was going to put in an application the next few days.
[Photo above] Our brother Saqib @Saqis9966 who is from Pakistan, missing from Malaysia, now in Dubai, connected back with us via this virtual meet-up. We were missing him in our past few events, so meeting up again, although virtually was just amazing. He was having his tea and special biscuits.
[Photo above] Saidul @Saidulkarim who is from Bangladesh and now lives in Cyberjaya in Malaysia had made eggs and dates for dinner. We chatted about the current Covid-19 situation and that also he was going to put in his application for Connect Live soon.
[Photos above] Our brother Akmal @AkmalB is back in Pakistan for a bit of time and he was joining us remotely outside.
[Photo above] And finally myself. I had prepared one of our national dishes which is called Nasi Lemak, which is steamed coconut rice, served with traditional condiments such as sambal balachan (shrimp paste chilly chutney), deep fried anchovies and peanuts, hard boiled egg and cucumber. It was delicious.
Over the 1 hour virtually, we had dinner together, and it was amazing, and incredibly fun and bonding. We had discussed about our recent experiences locally. We had advised each other on what is best to do for Connect Live 2020 application. And that we needed to submit it soon. And we also discuss what next virtual meetup we will be hosting, which may include some collaborative gaming online.
Thanks everyone for joining, it was amazing seeing and spending time with each and everyone, and we will meet again soon. Stay safe and stay at home.
#localguides #localguidesconnect #breakthechain
meetup I like it 
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