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| Trees? Check. Pool? Check. Kids? Check. SiangShing |
I made it a point to sit away from my department team mates and lounge with the rest of the people from the office so that I get to know them better, instead of hanging around the same group of people I work with every day. The result was positive as I had quite a awesome time with the jokes flying around the place throughout the four-hour journey eastwards from KL - haven't really laughed this much in a while.
If anything it gave me the chance to know the rest of the people I see everyday in the office but don't interact with beyond the 'zhou san!' or 'yo!' we greet each other every morning. I have always done this in my previous jobs or in school as well, forcing myself to socialise away from the same group of people when the situation literally hands it to you on a platter.
As for my colleague's reaction to me, well, only they'll know I suppose. Perhaps it's a bit too offhand as the guy from IT who is usually sitting at the back quietly is suddenly in the middle of whom I call 'The Fun Group' due to the amount of laughs one can hear from that side of the room daily. Once joked with one of them if I could apply to work at their department as there's always laughter whilst the IT team is almost always so intense in mood.
Perhaps it helps to let them know that I speak that I'm not as banana as I appear - I was easily the 'whitest' chinese guy in the room, dubbed Sir Wilfred of Miri by one of my good friends, even more so than Sir Tony of Ipoh. One guy mentioned that I sounded like an angmoh speaking Hokkien.
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| Ho chiak! |
Getting wet
After lunch and settling down in our respective rooms, we left for field activities as planned by the people of the resort - mostly brain teasers ranging from pictorial quizzes to mathematics to popular science.
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| The great outdoors is where it's at, son. Alicia Suah |
One of the most common comments that I get when it comes to being good in such things is "how the -beep- do you remember all that?!". To be honest I don't know either - what I do know though is that the brain has unlimited storage so that I don't have to choose what to listen, read or learn; maybe it's more of the ability to recall that amazes some of my friends. Still everything I recall is something we have all learned one time or another in school.
Or I'm a freak of nature.
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| "Consistent downwards slap with your palm, easy". Alicia Suah |
Not if you knew that (many) holes had been punctured along the entire length of the pipe at random locations. Ten fingers won't cover them all because you'll have to stretch your hand all over the place, none which would cover ten as well as holding it upright. Once the water is poured in any uncovered holes with have water spewing out fiercely, blinding you that a slip up of the fingers might be permanent as your eyes are closed shut.
John and I were the two at the bottom and according liquid dynamics we'll get sprayed the hardest due to the highest pressure exerted at the lowest point. Add that to the hurried rhythm of our water carrier splashing water into the pipe, we were both totally wet within the first half-minute of the competition.
Sufficed to say not a single part of our body were dry by the time the event ended - my light yellow shorts wet to the point of being transparent. Also imagine that my underwear was brown in colour.
Hi Mom!
Carlsberg & ice
I had my first drink in almost ten years if you don't count Anglia Shandy, albeit just a little bit at the karaoke box on the other block of the resort building. In some ways I was reminded on why I never developed a liking for the brew simply because it was a taste that I never enjoyed - the bitter and slightly tangy taste that doesn't agree with my tongue the same way that a glass of Coke would. Still, the team director poured it personally for me and asked nicely, it's kinda hard to say 'No' four times to a chorus of cheers and glass clinking.
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| "Finish one full glass and I'll give you half a day leave extra!" ChuenHaw |
Whilst our team manager did his karaoke round of Jacky Cheung's 'Thousand Reasons for Sadness' （一千个伤心的理由），I told the familiar story of why I don't drink to our director, from the Coke or F&N Orange Crush plus whiskey to the Heineken that I experimented with, none of which stroked my fancy. Sufficed to say the two towers of beer finished with nary a problem due to the expertise of my other colleagues.
I'll pass, thank you - but I'll probably learn to tolerate more in the future although it will always end once I turn lightheaded.
Hi Mom!
Hidden in the darkness
A session of night jungle trekking followed a far improved dinner as we made our way into the secondary forest area near the resort. The number of people who went for the trek were less than those who went for the field activity, understandably for various reasons - considering we were all under the hot sun for a few hours and then drenched wet with water, it's inevitable some would not make it. Others though...
We gathered at a clearing near the entrance to the jungle and had a briefing session on what to do and what not to do before we went in, the usual thing about respecting the forest and being aware & looking out for one another.
As the marshals spoke, there was something that I noticed and pointed out to my nearby colleagues - the sky were so dark with very little artificial light that the stars were visible, the first I've seen in a very long time ever since my return home during a short gardening leave before joining this company. There were no building to obscure the surroundings of even darker tree silhouettes, enveloped by the sounds of the night. I could make out Orion's Belt, the line of three stars between two oddly shaped squares. Just brilliant - the best things in life are often free.
We made a beeline into the jungle trail enveloped by darkness lit by only the flutter of candles that threaten to extinguish to the mild breeze of the night. During the whole trip I felt a sense of 'connection' with nature, sort of like experiencing the life of our ancestors when they first walked the earth. There were only sounds of twigs snapping under our feet or shuffle of leaves, blending into the cricks of crickets and other insects. I'd imagine that it wouldn't be any special if this were done during the day - as well as the sweat from the humidity of a hot afternoon - but at night the forest becomes almost mystical in nature, the dark shadows hiding things that we can only imagine.
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| "Daddy that's such a big kitty, can we keep him?!" |
We walked for almost 2 hours and yet I felt little to no fatigue as I enjoyed the trek even if we had to ascend and descend slopes as well as keep a lookout for stumps, low hanging branches, thick roots and creeping vines. For some reason some of us were expecting 'something' to happen along the lines of 'strange', the nearest were the movement in the bushes twice other than which was quite uneventful
If anything we didn't get the wild boar some of us were talking about in the bus on the way to the resort, of which I'm not sure how we'll bring it down with torch lights and twigs.
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| There's a wild boar in that picture somewhere. |
"I heard something"
Because the karaoke box was filled with cigarette and cigar smoke by the time we showered and came out to mosey around, a few of us stayed outside at the table and chairs to do what we planned to do earlier - sharing ghost stories. Too bad we can't start a bonfire toasting marshmallows or it would be just perfect - instead we have amusement park rides such as the merry-go-round and spinning teacups sitting idle as it rained, whilst downing RM2.00 worth of orange cordial diluted by melted ice to the point of tasting like tap water seasoned with lemon.
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| The marshmallow's are ready for eating. |
We took turn sharing a bunch of stories, mine being some from my days at a previous office whilst forgetting about the one in Kelana Jaya which would've been the icing on the cake. Some are a bit hard to take whilst others were quite something. One of the bosses from the RT office joined us and told of his own experience - interspersed with sudden loud shouts to shock us - in Singapore. One of our lady colleagues were on the receiving side of our joke about her visit to Thailand soon and probably won't hear the end of it until she's back.
We're great people, like.
We all went back to our respective rooms at around 2:00 am after a photo session and slept like logs until the morning.
Splash
I didn't join the crowd to the water park because I don't quite enjoy water games as well as feeling the effects of the previous day's hot and wet escapade, so I stayed in bed for most of the morning until lunch trying to catch up on sleep that were of the pattern of sleep-wake-sleep-sleep-wake-sleep-wake for most of the morning before breakfast.
Good for my friends who went as they looked to have enjoyed themselves a lot from the photos they took.
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| You have to ask the ladies if they had fun, I wasn't there. ShiangShing |
Back to the city
The rest of the journey home to KL was a lot less eventful as most of the people on the bus took the opportunity to catch up on sleep, making us perfect prey for one of our most animated colleagues to snap snap. At least five of the photos were of me, none of which were at all flattering.
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| I can't hear you! Come on, rasa sayang eh rasa sayang sayang eh! SiangShing |
I also lost a joke of a bet that we'll be back at Mid Valley in 45 minutes after we hit Gombak toll - I'm not sure how we managed to get there in around 20 minutes, heading into the city, at 5:00 pm on a rainy afternoon. The victors got their share of the spoils of a nice meal, after which we dispersed and head home to hear about Dirk Kuyt missing a penalty vs Everton.
Until next time, comrades.
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