Seven Stars - The Galaxy Of Seven Stars

Seven Stars 
The Galaxy of Seven Stars

On that last night in KL in November 2010 Jeff and I both knew we’d be coming back someday, we talked about how much the rest of our crew would like it and after we got back it came up in conversation on and off for around 6 months, but by June I was starting to get antsy and I was ready to get planning for my next overseas holiday. I said, “I’m going with or without y’all”.

But where was I going? I had some ideas, Hong Kong was really appealing and still is, as is going over to China, but then I was also facing the fact that I might be travelling alone. Jeff meanwhile remained coy as ever, he doesn’t really plan for anything, rather he just let’s shit happen, but in this case he said, “Where you going?” I didn’t know. Then he said, “If you wanna go to KL same time as last year, I’m keen”. I was impressed, I figured i’d hassle him some more and maybe drop some hints to let him know I was soloing over to Hong Kong but the idea of going back to KL again was enticing despite having already been there the year before. I agreed that we should go overseas together again, but I also said that I wanted to do a whole more than what we did last time, you know, really open ourselves up for more adventure. Jeff pleased with this said, “We’ll go with other Drunkards, break things up a bit” then he said, “Let’s assemble our crew”

First off Jeff proceeded to invite James (aka Joggy) and his wife Soly, both seasoned travellers, to come along for the ride. I hadn’t seen Joggy since the first DIC LAN party way back in 2004 and I’ve always got along really well with him. Plus Jeff and Budda are all mates in real life so it seemed kinda natural for them to be invited. Then Jeff said, “How about we invite Koota?” and we tried to get him to come but Koota is a manager now and that made him getting away to be really hard. I had tentatively suggested that Minor come along as far back as November 2010 and we had even gone to the extent of making plans for him to come along, Jeff was prepared to pay for him and everything, but Minor said if he was going to come it’d be off his own back, but by about June his finances were so out of whack he told us all to forget it.

Outside of the clan I had thought of my sister but with her pregnancy and the birth of my niece in May 2011 it was too soon to consider it. I had even put the idea to my Dad and for an entire afternoon he seemed like he was really into the idea of a father and son holiday. But then after he broached the subject with my step mother his enthusiasm sort of fell away. So at this stage in the planning it looked like I’d be going with the clan, me and Jeff and Joggy and his wife Soly.
Jeff and Joggy had asked Budda, who i’ve never met in real life, but turns out Budda couldn’t swing it with work or the finances, either way it seemed as though we were overlooking someone else.
And I really don’t know why we’d overlooked the guy when Jeff says to me, “Budda can’t come but hey...how about asking Live2Die?”  and I was like, “Of course!”
I mean Live’s been a clan regular for years and I have no excuse for not asking him from the get go. When he was asked by Jeff to come along, to be honest I didn’t think that Lively would be keen to catch up with fellow clansters overseas, I mean i’ve met Lively at a clan get together interstate in Melbourne, but when we pitched the idea to our clan mates for us all to meet up overseas, well I kinda had my doubts Live would be into it. But man was I wrong, Lively remained keen from the get go and said, “I’ve never been overseas before, yeah fuck it, i’m in”.

So at this point it was just going to be the five of us, the Drunkards go large overseas, yeah it was gonna be crazy even with this ensemble. But at the last gasp my mate Nathan from work says, “Oi when are you going? I’ll come but I wanna bring somebody”.  And then my head exploded at the thought. Seven people? Could it work? Then I asked Nate, “Who you wanna bring?” and he says, “My girl friend of many years, Kym”.  And I was like, “Oh really?”
Nathe explained Kym was his child hood sweetheart, the girl he always expected to end up with, but while they didn’t stay romantically linked they did remain the best of friends through the good times and the bad. Nathe and Kym had travelled a bit already and the two of them were planning for an overseas trip that would include Kuala Lumpur as their first stop before heading over to Singapore.
I didn’t need to be convinced, I was already doing a lot of the planning and I had long thought of how sick it would be to travel with one or two mates from the clan let alone one of my mates from work.
So, I shared the news to the fellas from the clan and they were into the idea, I quote Joggy who said, “The more the merrier”.

So there would be seven of us, seven amigos, seven stars, none of us really knew each other that well besides work and through online gaming, so how was this gonna work out?
 But I really didn’t need to have stressed at all, the ideas flowed, people emailed suggestions back and forth and the idea that we should all stay together came was decided early on. Jeff and I putting the idea to the crew that we all get club rooms at the Hotel Istana, it’s where Jeff and I had stayed before and we figured that from there we’d work the rest out day by day.

In the months leading up to take-off I shared around ideas of places to eat and places to shop, I made lists of things to see and do, along the way I was kinda putting myself last in the planning, but it was Joggy who said to me very early on, “Mate this is your holiday, so plan for that and only for that, and the rest will work itself out” But then here’s me trying to plan for everything and really just wanting to ensure that all my mates come together and have a blast.

So after months of planning, emails to and fro, I made a secret agenda of my own, with the bottom line I’m gonna have some fun. With plans set, the Drunkards were ready to come together like the arms and legs of Voltron, to come together here in this lovely hidden gem of the Asian wonderland, to sight-see, to relax, pamper and spoil ourselves, to eat, drink and be merry, Oh and... to get our mother fucking shop-on.