Holiday Inn Batam

What an eventful weekend! T'was meant to be a relaxing retreat but our program was packed!
Let me recall what we did these 2 days...

1. Checked in
2. Lunch at Dragon Inn Restaurant
3. Explore around the resort
4. Spa package consisting of body scrub, bubble bath, massage and foot reflex
5. Tepanyaki dinner
6. More exploring around the resort looking for stuff to do. Went shopping at the Polo shop and ended up buying 2 polo tees! Gasp!
7. There's really nothing to do so we went to the gym and worked-out in slippers! Can't believe i was lifting dumbells there. The gym boy was really happy to see us there cos i think we might be the first people to step into the gym the whole day. But he was equally pleased to see us leave cos we were there for quite some time and i think it was almost time for him to go home. :p
8. Back to room, shower, watched tv and TRIED to sleep
9. Dunno if it was the bed or the down pillow or the workout or the noisy aircon, i had a hard time trying to fall asleep when usually i am knocked out within minutes. Slept like intermittently 2-3hours. :( But i'm already better than YZ. She only managed to sleep like after day break. Took a lousy sunrise photo from the room and tried to go back to sleep. Didn't dare to explore the resort for a good sunrise spot by myself.
10. Breakfast was super packed cos there were 2 huge groups of people having their retreats
11. Took a cab to Nagoya Hill mall. YL wanted to do hair spa so all of us ended up doing something there.
12. Lunch at A&W
13. Last minute dash to the hypermart to spend my last 4000rp which is like about 60cents. haa... ended up buying 2 bars of soap.
14. Cab back to the resort. We had asked the same cab driver to take us back and we found out that he was waiting for us at the carpark for the whole 4hrs there. We guessed he would have made enough by just driving us...
15. Checked out and made our way to the ferry terminal. Was to had taken the 4pm ferry from Waterfront terminal but it was full even though we had confirmed our tickets. -_-" So we were rescheduled to the 5pm ferry from Batam City. Horror of horrors, at the terminal, we were told that we might have to take the 9pm ferry instead! OMG! We were literally penny-less cos we had spent all our money. To much relief, our busload managed to squeeze in the 5pm ferry.
16. Before we say our goodbyes, there was almost a stampede in the ferry terminal. We were nicely queuing in line at the gate when people just suddenly all rush to gather at the front. It was really ugly but not to be outdone, we had to follow the people at their game too.
17. Finally managed to survive the ordeal and home sweet home!

New Moon

Not quite an action movie. Not quite a romance. Not quite a fantasy film. Was waiting for some ACTION the whole movie so was kinda disappointed when there wasn't. But was also kinda relieved there isn't much action cos i startle at the slightest sound in the theatre. i really can't understand how the girls go gaga over a seriously over pale guy. The vampire's cute but would look better with a little tan. The saving redemption are the pack of werewolves. Give me six-packs anytime! Especially with a cute face to boot. :p

Not sure if i wanna watch the part 1 of this twilight saga... i dun think i'm missing much but i'm curious to see what have i missed too...

Take The Lead

Wanted to watch this cos of a 7 habits course that i had attended months ago. The course left an impact on me not because of the course content but rather the life lessons the instructor imparted.

He showed a short clip from this movie during the course of the course. i think i was kinda affected by the clip that made me want to see the whole show. Other than the ballroom dancing which roused a tiny weeny bit of dancing itch in me, the movie is quite average.

"There are only choices to be made."

Up

The dvd is finally out! i really like this simple tale of Carl and his adventure to Paradise Falls and the odd combination with Russel, Kevin and Dug. Life's real adventures are often not what you make them out to be.

The dvd comes with a documentary on the filmmakers' journey to South America to the real Paradise Falls! i didn't know that Up is based on a real tepui and the Angel Falls is the tallest waterfall in the world! Cool!

Up up and away! :p

City Hall

XX lent me this dvd a while ago. Probably around the time SL lent me the <<败犬女王>>. It's been a while since i watched a kdrama. This starred the female lead from My Name is Kim Sam Soon which was one of my fav kdrama. Anyway, finished watching City Hall in a week. Great chemistry between the leads and the male lead looks really man in this show! :p

The mayor and the city staff did a dance in the last episode. i thought it was really cool so i searched for the song and it's the exact same moves!

Walkout

No more jap classes! Yay! But woke up earlier than usual for a walkout with my parents. They have started walking every morning this week and i decided to join them to do some exercise too. :p

To accomodate me, we left the house slightly before sun break. Usually they would have completed their workout by this time! haa... Walked all the way to our old house to have breakfast and to do some marketing. It's not really that far but we walked for 1 hour! Gasp! Distance is about 3 train stations.

Most meaningful cohesion

The office does seem to have excessive cohesion/team building/welfare activities. Especially when you belong to so many different entities. But today's especially meaningful cos it's at a school for people with special needs.

We were split into our 4 houses - i'm in blue - and were joined by the students. Together, we danced to the crazy ditty Nobody, played games, cheered and clapped till the day is over. Although the games are very simple, such as, balancing bean bag on the head, transporting balloons, rolling hula hoop, etc, they were fun! Happiness can be so simple. Seeing the students giving their best in playing the games sure put alot of the adults around to shame. The easy chatter between the students and the teachers also made me wonder how long did the teachers spent with them to build such a rapport. i think you need lots of love and patience to be a teacher nowadays, much less to children with special needs. i really salute them.

The most touching moment was when the principal asked the students to give us a "thank you" clap. They have a special applause for guests. i almost teared when i heard it. It's just a simple and common clap but it's the thought that matters. Can see that they really enjoyed themselves as much as i did.

Oh did i forget to mention that blue team won today! We were the underdogs again. Won by a dance step! :p

李玟 - 爱我久一点

Heard part of this on tv yesterday and realised it has been a decade since i last heard this song! Tried searching youtube but alas, i think this song is either too 冷门 or too old, original MTV cannot be found. i liked this song then cos of the MTV, way back during the days when MTV was played on channel 8 every Saturday. Oh well, can't find the original so this is the next best.

Oooohhh! Just remembered i have a vcd of this mv in my drawer! :p

Car Wash!

After Pa got a new eye, the car is mostly sitting in the carpark. i don't have a habit of driving to work yet. Unless i'm out of office for half the day. It doesn't make sense to pay additional parking fees when i can reach office in around the same amount of time on public transport! Anyway, the car is badly in need of a wash and so off i go for my first car wash! i think cos today's Sun so there's a queue at the car wash.

This might sound mundane but i think it's cool stuff! First, they wet the car to wash the dirt away. Then they splatter this mechanical bubble maker on full blast at the car. Awesome! It's really different watching them do their ritual on other cars and sitting through it yourself. After they give the car a little rubbing, they hose the car down. Next stop, wipe dry. Viola! As good as new and all these in under 15 minutes!

If i'm to do this myself, i'll take at least an hour! hehe. i remember when i was driving the ex-office pickup few years back, i would be washing the vehicle every other week. It's really funny cos everyone would be cleaning their brand new cars in the car park and i'm scrubbing an old pickup. But i like cleaning the two-seater vehicle. i think cleaning is therapeutic and it is a great workout. But now? i think i'd go for a manual car wash! :p

[Sidenote] Kinda miss the pickup driving days when everything's free and i just need to pay for parking! Have to thank those days too - for letting me hone my driving skills. Not that they are any good but i think i'm more garang when i'm behind a pickup than a saloon.

Food Race

Yet another office event. And i swear this would be the last time i'm organising one!

The big boss gave us a budget of $10 per pax to plan for cohesion day. Nearly fainted when i got the arrow. What can you do with $10!? You can't even find a decent restaurant to eat in. Don't even talk about cohesion or teambuilding! Luckily, thanks to a very constructive idea from DT, SL and i cracked our brains and thought of a very simple but brillant plan. And most important of all, very budget!

Split the office into groups of 5. Make them go to designated places to buy specific food items and go to an assembly point. Then everyone eats the food that they bought! What a simple plan!

To get to the designated location? Solve a jigsaw puzzle which we DIY by going on-location to take photo, print on office printer, home-laminate fully sponsored by SN and cut into puzzle form! :) Luckily there were 5 shopping malls near the office. Just nice for the 5 teams.

What food to buy? Crossword puzzle developed by SL which got even us cracking our brains!

And from which shop? Fill-in-the-blanks hangman style.

Where is the end point? Yet another jigsaw puzzle but this time it is a giveaway in the form of a map. Yet another "free" venue which we managed to get by a stroke of luck!

Since we didn't spend a single cent on the teambuilding part (the solving puzzles portion), we can spend all the budget on the food! Most importantly, we got the teams to buy food that WE wanted to eat! Cos we (the organisers) planned everything we can't participate so this is at least one part that we can manipulate! hehe. :p

[Sidenote] Got to know one week ago that another office took the "initiative" to suggest to the big boss to use another bank account for their cohesion. They engaged an external event organiser and spent $86 per head! WTH! i was real p*ssed when i heard this. Really don't know what the big boss is thinking of. We highlighted to my boss and took the "official" route to "inform" the big boss about the inconsistency in his execution but to no avail. i had hoped to twart their plans but haiz... When we first got to know the budget, we had asked my boss if we could request for more money but my boss had told us not to cos the big boss had only allocated that amount. So we listened to instructions and worked within budget. To hear some people taking "initiative" really turned us speechless.

Anyway, moral of story is, we are so creative we can do anything with even a small budget. At least i can proudly say that we had planned and organised an event that i think my colleagues enjoyed. It was really fun looking at them trying their best to solve the puzzles which i must admit was challenging. We could afford to give everyone a survival pack and prizes for the winning team and the first runner up. i had fun organising it though i hoped we won't have to organise next year's!

Thanks to SL and SN for sharing the arrow and cracking their brains with me! :)