I crawled back to San Jose early Monday morning after not sleeping, but partying, working, and drinking straight for 2 days and 3 nights.
I had been wanting to go to SXSW for years and finally got to go there for work this time. Motherapp had a booth there, and I, of course was one of the booth babes. :)
I took my cousin Edith with me to Austin. We got in Friday midnight. We had to up early Saturday morning to set up the booth, and I stood there till 6pm before all the fun started from there on.
Let me see my Foursquare checkin history:
3/13 Saturday - First day as a booth babe
1. 10:47 am
Austin Convention Center
2. 3:55 pm
Mekong River Vietnamese Restaurant - lunch
3. 6:45 pm
6th bar - Startup Live Event with Jason Calacanis
From there, I hopped onto a green party bus with Edith and Dave McClure. The bus windows were all painted so you basically don't know where you are taken to. Between 7-9pm, Foursquare was completely jammed (twitter as well) because there were gazillion people using it so I lost track. Oh, the bus also had an open bar! The first place we got dropped off was the Digg Nation party at... somewhere...
4. 9:50 pm
The Ester Follies - I don't remember what I did there :P
5. 10:08 pm
Imperia - Dave got us on a paddy cab to dinner
6. 11:04 pm
The Cedar Door - We dispersed
7. 12:23 am
The Belmont - Met up with Vince. It was also a mad house. Saw Robert Scoble there.
8. 12:43am
Driskill Hotel (A Romanesque hotel built in 1886, I think it's sorta a landmark of Austin) -A big group of us were there. And somehow I checked in there many times after.
9. Walked around town and tried to avoid the crowd with someone I met a few days ago at Edith's meetup till 5am.
Interesting conversation we had... He told me Austin during SXSW is magical.
3/14 Sunday - Second day as a booth babe
1. 11:53 am
Austin Convention Center
I was pretty dead after being out till 5 am the night before until DHH - David Heinemeier Hansson walked by my booth. I chased after him to introduce myself. That totally woke me up. For those of you who don't know who DHH is, he developed the famous Ruby On Rails and is a partner of 37signals. He is my idol.
It was hard for me to stay pumped since the early afternoon. Thank god a lot of my friends came to visit (harass) me at the booth to keep me awake. Another highlight - I finally met Andy Baio in person. He is the founder of Upcoming, the product I am working on and the reason I joined Y!
2. 6:37 pm
The Four Seasons - Venture hacks party
3. 7:58 pm
La Condesa - Team dinner
Yummy fusion Mexican food!
4. 9ish pm
We tried to get into the Mashable party but the bouncers were ridiculously rude. Therefore..
5. 10:25pm
Back to Drisill
It was only Heidi, Brandon, and me at first but our group kept getting bigger. We stopped drinking involuntarily at midnight because that's the time they closed the bar. Bleh.
6. 12:30am
The Twitter party
The DJ there was amazing. He multitasked with both videos and audio. I had never seen anything like that elsewhere.
7. I walked out of the party with the same person I hung out with the night before. We went sightseeing till... 3am.
The vibe of SXSW was incredible. It was beyond a spring break for geeks and a rare opportunity to meet and party with my favorite startup/web celebrities. The whole town was filled with enthusiasm and energy. I had never seen anything like this before. I had high expectation on the trip, and the experience definitely exceeded my expectation.
These are the people who made this trip beyond amazing to me.
Brandon Middleton - my friend who volunteered to help Motheapp
Edith Yeung - my cousin who took me to many fun parties
Dave McClure - I love his balloon hat
Heidi Rielly - my coworker who was a lot of fun to work and hang out with
Andy Baio - I thought I would never meet him since he lives in Oregon after he left Y!
DHH - my biggest crush (career self only)
Ken Law - by giving me the opportunity to be the booth babe of Motherapp
Also -
Sean Power - you made it real for me too... please don't leave San Francisco, it will all work out, trust me.
This is what Andy Baio tweeted about SXSW and it sums up how I feel about the event too --
"Every year, I think it'll grow old, and every year, I leave exhausted and invigorated by thousands of people making wonderful things. #sxsw"
