Wordcamp Philippines 2009 was great. It was informative and educational for WordPress users of any levels. All three Wordcamps that I’ve attended had a representative from Automattic, the company behind WordPress. Alex Shiels was there at Wordcamp Melbourne in 2007, Matt Mullenweg was here for Wordcamp Philippines 2008 and this year, it was Beau Leben. He was joined by Seth Bindernagel and Gen Kanai, the guys from Mozilla, who co-presented Wordcamp this year.

Wordcamp Philippines 2009 speakers. From left: Blogie Robillo, Jeff Villafranca, Beau Leben, Markku Seguerra, Gail Villanueva, Coy Caballes, Karla Redor and Seth Bindernagel

However, the best part came afterwards.

After a full day of geek-talk, we retreated to Whistlestop for post-Wordcamp dinner with the speakers, organizers and volunteers. We had the usual Pinoy favorites: pork sisig, crispy pata, sinigang na baboy, kare-kare, chicken adobo in gata and Whistlestop’s bestseller, the buffalo wings. The three guests enjoyed the greasy and utterly sinful dishes, especially the sisig and the crispy pata. The most memorable, however, was the balut.

Markku demonstrating how to open the balut with Seth following his lead

It seemed like every foreigner who visit gets badgered to try the balut when traveling in the Philippines. I’ve done it to a couple of guests, even if I don’t eat it myself. Gen, having grew up with a Filipina nanny knew all about balut and managed to escape having to try it by leaving the table. Seth was eager to try it, while Beau was clearly not sold on the idea of eating duck embryo. However, when the balut was handed to him and all the cameras came out, he balked under pressure and subjected himself to this Philippine streetfood.

Beau about to take a bite, and the bloggers all snapping away. More pictures of this uh, momentous event are up on my flickr.

Markku demonstrated, guiding them all the way from gingerly opening the shell, sipping the juice, getting rid of the stuff that’s not edible (which Jeff, the other Pinoy who ate balut with them, ate), and eating the embyro itself. They were lucky because the balut they got wasn’t as developed yet, so it was basically a weird looking blob. Seth and Beau managed to finish their balut, and both admitted that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be. Kudos to both of you, for eating something that about 60% of people in that room does not eat

Wordcamp Philippines 2009 organizers and volunteers

A huge congratulations goes out to Blogie, the Mindanao Bloggers Society and the rest of the Wordcamp organizers and volunteers for another awesome WC this year. Looking forward to 2010!

Interested to read more about WordcampPH 2009? Here are posts from other Wordcampers (thanks to Jehzlau for compiling the links!):
1. I’m a Happy Camper at WordCamp by Maki Eduardo
2. What I learned in WordCamp 2009 by Melvin
3. WordCamp 2009 by Nina Fuentes
4. My First WordCamp by Venus
5. WordCamp Philippines 2009 by Rowjie
6. My WordCamp Philippines 2009 Experience by Menard