My time at the Hanoi Steemit Meet-up!

The Hanoi Steemit Meet-up on January 21, 2018.

I'm a few days late posting this, but I had to wait until I got home from Vietnam. @doctorcrypto and I went to Vietnam for 2 weeks and as luck would have it, a Steemit meet-up was being held while we were there. I'm going to finish my Country By Country series, but I want to post this due to the time-sensitive nature of its content.

Before leaving for Vietnam, I had noticed @hanggggbeeee had posted about a Steemit meet-up in Hanoi. We got in touch and made plans to meet before the event.

When we met @hanggggbeeee, she brought another foreigner with her. @derekcowan lives in Saigon and flew to Hanoi for the meet-up. We went out for some food and drinks. We had a fun time getting to know each other and learning about what to expect at the meet-up.

@doctorcrypto, @derekcowan, and @hanggggbeeee at a roof-top bar in Hanoi.

I had seen some of @derekcowan's posts in #vietnam and it was fun talking about Steemit and his experiences of being a foreigner in Vietnam.

The Event

On the day of the event, Google sent us to the wrong place (never trust Google in Asia!). Luckily, we weren't too far from the actual location and we were able to walk the rest of the way. When we arrived, the meet-up had already started.

Many different Steemit topics were covered. Everything from content quality, to cashing out was discussed. Since most of the presentations were in Vietnamese, I don't know exactly what was said, but it looked like there was a lot of great information for the Vietnamese Steemians in attendance. Quite a few of the attendees are brand new to Steemit and I think the information presented will prove quite valuable to them.

Here are some of my photos of the presenters. I'm not sure about some of the people's account names. Apologies for not remembering some of your names :(

@hanggggbeeee, presenter, organizer, translator, helper, and foreign relations expert.

@doctorcrypto discussing @steemchiller's awesome SteemWorld site.

@derekcowan discussing the @smartsteem tools.

@a-alice giving a presentation about vote bots.

@a-alice and @hanggggbeeee.

A very informative presentation about converting STEEM to fiat.

A little awards ceremony was held to recognize some of the Steemians at the event. I believe the winners were voted on.

I counted around 20 people at the event. I'm not going to attempt tagging everyone in the photos. I'm terrible at remembering western names, and Asian names are almost impossible for me.

After the meet-up was concluded, we were invited out for an authentic meal away from the tourist area. The talented, lovely, and beautiful @hanggggbeeee and @little-princess were great hosts and took us to an excellent little place for dinner.

@little-princess and @hanggggbeeee

After a very tasty meal, it was time to part ways.

We said goodnight to the girls and headed back to the tourist area. @derekcowan joined us for an evening of much drinking and many laughs.

Thank you to everyone who made our time in Vietnam special. I'm really encouraged by the enthusiasm and energy of the Vietnamese Steemians. From my American perspective, I'm amazed to see how life-changing the power of Steem actually is. A few posts on Steemit can have a big financial impact! Considering the average low wages earned in Vietnam, Steemit is definitely changing lives. I'm proud to be a part of the Steemit community!

Extra special thanks to @hanggggbeee for the tremendous amount of work that she put into this event, and for taking care of us foreigners.

Important: Does anyone know who runs the @newhope account? @hanggggbeeee got a big vote from that account and wanted to send a message. She accidentally clicked on the link that filled in her entire balance. She accidentally sent all of her STEEM! We think that whoever runs @newhope probably doesn't even know it happened. If you happen to know how to contact the account owner, please let them know about this mistake.

OUCH!

I'm still amazed that @hanggggbeeee didn't let this mistake discourage her.