The night before:
- Packed
- Set my alarm to 6am so that I can leave my house at 7am, reach Alice’s place at 7.30am, go to a nearby 7-11 to buy some drinks and snacks then reach Chriz’ [our designated driver] house at 8.30am
- Hung out with Yaacob for a bit [he came to see me after work. Won’t be seeing him for the next 2 days :’(]
The morning after:
- Woke up at 7am [after mom came to wake me up. Thanks mom, for waking me up at the time I’m supposed to LEAVE the house!! She forgot until it was 7am that I was supposed to be awake and leave the house at that time… Aaaah!!]
- Showered and got ready
- Got into the car with Dad waiting huffily [he then proceeded to nag at me for always being late, unable to keep time, etc : (]
- Got yelled at by Chriz coz I was late [:'(]
- Got numerous calls from Alice and YY to ask me when I'm reaching [coz they were waiting for almost an hour for me. Feel so bad : (]
Dad decided to take the back road to Alice’s and we got stuck in a really bad jam. Witnessed a small accident involving a cab and a motorcycle. The cab was about 2 cars in front of us and while trying to get out of the junction, he accidentally hit the motorcyclist who was riding by. The cab driver wound down his window and put out his hand as a gesture of apology. The motorcyclist walked over to him, grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard as he scolded the cab driver. Dad and I were stuck there because the cab was blocking the exit from the junction. The other cards began to slowly drive past the cab into the next lane [for oncoming cars actually] and drove out of the junction. Dad did the same. I looked at the motorcycle and I didn’t see anything wrong with it at all. No scratches whatsoever. The motorcyclist was obviously ok as he could walk and scold the cab driver with a lot of energy. I saw the cab driver pull out some money from this shirt pocket to pay the motorcyclist, who had a couple of friends with him at that time [pity the cab driver. The motorcyclist was just extorting money from him in broad daylight and there was nothing the can driver could do as he was outnumbered, therefore, for his own safety, he was forced to part with some cash].
When I reached Alice’s place, she was already waiting in her bf’s car with YY. Her bf sped to Chriz’s house. We reached in no time. Chriz was already scolding me for being late before I even step out of Alice’s bf’s car. Alan was making some sarcastic jokes about me being late [so malu. Felt bad as well : (]. I tried to divert their attention by cracking some silly joke about chucking Savvy [Chriz’ jack russel terrier] into the car and bringing him along. We loaded our bags into the car booth and then we were off. Chriz made a stop at a petrol kiosk on the highway to get some cash from the ATM. Alice and I bought a couple of water bottles and snacks.
We joked and laughed all the way there. Alice was laughing so hard she cried out to us to stop making her laugh as she was having a gastric attack for laughing too much {:O
We stopped at some rest stop somewhere because Chriz needed her coffee. We took some pictures there and Chriz was joking about asking the lady behind the drinks counter if the highway we were in was leading to Penang [we know that the highway was leading to Terengganu. Just wanted to see the lady’s reaction : P]. We dared Chriz to ask that question when we reached the toll later. Chriz agreed to do it. Haha...
Upon reaching the toll, YY got her camera out, ready to record the moment. The rest of us were laughing hard. Alice covered her face with her pashmina [she was afraid that the toll fella would see her laughing face. She was also commenting that she did not want to be remembered by the fella for this]. Alan was laughing and looking out at the window. Chriz was already in stitches. I think the toll fella suspected something was amiss by how all of us were acting. I told Chriz to ask him only after he gave her her change and receipt. So she did:
Chriz: [laughing] “Bang, sini highway ke Penang, ke?”
Toll Fella: “Hah? Bukan la, sini Terengganu.”
Chriz: “Hah? [showed a fake horrified face, all the while trying to hold in her laughter]Terengganu??!! Alamak, sudah salah jalan. Macam mana, ar?”
Toll Fella: [Started laughing and shruged his shoulders]
Chriz: “Jadi, ada jalan yang boleh potong ke Penang dari sini?”
Toll Fella: [laughed and shook his head]
Chriz: “Thank you, ar.”
Then we drove off. All of us were laughing so hard we couldn’t even breath properly.
Alan: “OMG. I think he knows la we’re trying to pull his leg.”
Me: “Yea la, all of us were laughing so much. Chriz! Hopeless la you. Cannot nominate you for best actress. Your acting is lousy. You were laughing even before you approached the toll. The fella saw you. And you were laughing when you spoke to him. Of coz he’ll know we’re joking.”
Chriz: “Eh, you people were all laughing ok. And when I turned around, I saw Alice wrapping her face in her pashmina like some Saudi Arabian woman. I cannot tahan la.”
Alice: “Eh, of coz must hide my face. Sia sui la”
Chriz: “But that fella quite good looking, ya.”
Me: “We should tell the guy, hey, you’re punked. Ashton Kutcher will be here soon. Smile, you’re on camera.”
Alan: “Eh, this is Terengganu la. You think he’ll know who Ashton Kutcher is? [laughed] This is ‘Macam-Macam Chriz Liew show.”
All of us broke out in even louder laughter.
We drove the rest of the way in laughter and with Alan speaking in his own version of Thai [don’t ask me why he’s speaking in Thai. But let me make it clear. HIS own version of Thai. Not the actual language]. We were commenting on how lousy the billboard and road signs for Awana Kijal looked and we snapped a picture as evidence to show Matthias [he’s the marketing person for all Awana properties]. During this trip, we discovered Alan couldn’t take pictures for peanuts. We shoved the camera into his hands and told him to snap a picture of one of the Awana road signs. Chriz was stopping at the traffic lighta about 300 meters away, Plenty of time for him to get ready and snap right? Wrong! He fumbled with the camera and Chriz drove slowly past the sign for him to take the picture but in the end he missed it [apa la!!]. All of us shouted at him. The next road sign that came up, YY took the camera and snapped it.
We reached Awana Kijal at about 2pm. Checked in and had lunch. Then we were supposed to follow one of the Awana staff for a familiarization trip around the resort. She took us to the apartment blocks [which were across the parking lot]. It was really hot that day. The sun was scorching. All I wanted to do was to lie down beside the pool and laze around, not walk all over the resort in this heat. There was no breeze from the sea and the air felt really humid. After pretending to check out the apartment units, we walked back to the main building and our guide took everyone into a lift. We [Chriz, YY, Alice, Alan and I] stood back and told the lady we’d go in the next lift as the one she was in was already crowded with the others.
“Ok. Come to the 7th floor. 7th floor, ya!” She called out as the lift doors closed. We nodded but the moment the lift doors closed, we were yelping happily. We had no intention of joining them at the 7th floor. We’re going to run back to our rooms, change into our swimwear and lie down beside the pool and relax.
Chriz and I reached the pool first, after she made me walk a big round around the pool area to get in there. The entrance to the pool area was near the lift but Chriz asked me to follow her and we walked and walked but there was no other entrance and the whole pool area was gated.
Me: [huffily] “Chriz Liew, I escaped the fam trip not to take another fam trip here with you, ok! What are you trying to do? Show me the area AROUND the pool? I want to get IN the pool!”
Chriz: [laughed] “Come la. Follow me. I think the entrance is near the lift.”
Finally, we reached the entrance of the pool [near the lift], got our towels and went to claim a couple of deck chairs to lie on.
Chriz lay down on her chair and read her book. I proceeded to slather my whole body with a thick layer of sunblock before settling down with a newspaper. Then, YY and Alice came to join us. Alan, who claimed he went to the pool area but couldn’t see us, called Chriz' phone to tell us that he already went back to his room to sleep .
Chriz and Alice couldn’t swim so YY decided to teach them. Alice was afraid of the adult pool being too deep for her so in the end, YY took them to the children’s pool. I stayed on my chair and lay down to relax. After a while, I got bored so I called Yaacob. I told him I wanted to ride a bicycle after the girls were done with swimming.
Yaacob: "I don’t think you should do that.”
Me: “Why?”
Yaacob: “Urm… I don’t want you to fall, sweets,”
Me: “Hey, what makes you think I’d fall? I can ride a bike, ok?!”
Yaacob: “Sweety, I just don’t want you to get hurt. You know how you are. I have a feeling you’re gonna fall.”
Me: “I won’t fall la. And I’ll take pictures and prove it to you!!”
Yaacob: [laughed] “Ok, just be careful.”
After I hung up, I was really determined to go cycling, just to show him that I’ll not fall [I really don’t think I’m as clumsy and klutzy and lembab as he seem to think I am]. I waited for the girls to finish swimming, then I suggested to YY about going cycling. Her whole face lit up and she nodded excitedly. Chriz told us there would not be enough time for us to cycle and shower and show up for dinner at 7pm. She took us to the poolside Good. Now we can go cycling and not worry about not being able to show up for dinner at 7pm sharp.
Alan showed up suddenly in a wind breaker and track pants. We were all bewildered by his dressing.
YY: “Alan, are you cold?”
Alice: “Eh, this is not Awana Genting la.”
Chriz: [laughed] “What are you doing in that?”
Me: “Wei, are you going skiing? There’s no snow here. This is a beach resort, ok, not the Swiss Alps.”
Alan ignored our teasing. He told us he wanted to sleep somemore and asked us to wake him at 7pm then shuffled off.
After we were done at the café, Chriz went back to the room to shower [she don’t know how to ride a bike] while YY, Alice and I went to rent the bicycles for an hour’s ride. YY wanted a red bike so she went into the bicycle shed to pick hers. I hopped on the bike that the resort staff wheeled out for me. I didn’t really care what color the bike was as long as my feet were able to touch the ground when I sat on it. Alice too, took the bike that the staff wheeled to her. But she needed help in adjusting the seat as she couldn’t touch the ground with her feet. YY finally emerged from the shed with the bike of her choice. We charged the rental fees to our room [coz we didn’t have enough cash] then posed for some pictures [YY made a funny request to the staff who was helping us take pictures. She wanted him to take a picture of us cycling away, with our faces looking at the camera. I laughed when I saw the incredulous look on the guy’s face. The guy made an attempt to do what YY asked but it didn’t work. I told her to forget about it and just cycle].
We cycled around the resort and rode past some people from the sales department. We cycled around the place a few times, breathing in the sea air and taking in the scenery. Then, I got bored. I stopped at the chess game and asked YY if she fancied a game of chess. She said ok, so we started playing chess. I suck at chess. Always did. Never won a game of chess in my life. I’m just lousy in these kind of strategy-thinking games. Nevertheless, I had never played with a giant chess game before, so I was kind of having fun moving the pieces around. After about 10 minutes, I felt tired carrying the chess pieces around the giant board. The game was going no where and I was obviously losing. Alice sat on a bench at the side and began complaining she was tired and sleepy and asked us how long we were going to take to finish our game. Chriz poked her head out of our room window, yelled and waved at us excitedly then disappeared back into the room. After a while, I suggested to YY that we should just stop playing and continue to cycle around [Alice was getting impatient already]. She agreed. So, after we placed the pieces back to their original places, we cycled off.
After our hour was up, we returned the bikes to the bicycle shed and went back to our rooms to shower. I had bicycle grease smeared all over my leg [I wasn’t aware of that until YY pointed it out]. Oh well, I was going to hit the shower anyway, so I was not bothered by it. When I got back into the room, Chriz was on the phone and she complained to the person on the other line that I came back dirty and grubby, making me feel like a 5 year old kid who just got back home from the playground.
After showering, we went downstairs to the restaurant we had lunch in earlier in the day for dinner. To our dismay, we discovered that we were going to have all our meals for our entire stay in the SAME restaurant [yuck!] and the food there really SUCKS! So, we decided to drive out to a nearby KFC to eat. But before driving out, we heard from the sales people that there was a biking accident just now. Apparently, one of the girls got her foot stuck in the pedal and her toenail flew off after hitting a stone [that must hurt A LOT!!]. We drove out to KFC after kepoh-ing about the accident.
After dinner, we went back to the resort. I desperately needed a massage [whole body aching :(] and thought I’d be able to get one from the spa. To my dismay, the spa was closed. It was only freaking 9pm!! Spas are NOT supposed to close this early. I was pissed off. I couldn’t believe it! I was denied a massage because the people here sleep early??!!! I didn’t care whether they slept early or not. Spas are just not supposed to close at 9pm. I mean, a lot of guests would like to unwind and have a relaxing massage after a long day, after dinner right before they go to bed. Spas should close at 11pm or midnight. This is just ridiculous!! >:(
I grumbled all the way back to the lobby and hung out with the others at the Atrium Coffee Lounge. Chriz wanted to check her email and this café had wi fi, so she ran up to our room to fetch her laptop. I sat there, sulked and watched some TV. The TV was showing some real life investigations of recent cases. One of the cases highlighted was the Nurin murder. I felt sick watching it. The sick people who did that despicable murder to the child should really suffer for their crime!! They should be made to go through double the amount of suffering and pain that they did on the child! >:( After that show finished, I called Yaacob and spoke to him for a while to tell him about the day's events. I proudly told him I cycled but I did not fall :D
When Chriz was done with checking her emails, she, Alice and I returned to our room to chit chat. We talked until about midnight, then Alice announced that she was tired and she retreated to her own room to sleep.
The next morning, we woke up early, had our breakfast then walked drowsily to the ballroom where we were all supposed to assemble. I felt really reluctant to spend the whole day in this team building training. Goodness knows what they'd make me do! Sigh...
But towards the end of the day, during the evening after dinner, I felt completely different about this whole program. I really enjoyed myself :) I had a lot of fun and all of us had a good laugh watching the video that recorded our activities during the day. As for what we did, I can't tell now as the second group of the marketing & sales team have yet to go for their team building and we [the first group] are not supposed to reveal what we went through as not to spoil the surprise element for the second group. I'll blog about this after the second group completed their team buildling end of this month.
On our last day in Awana Kijal, we had to go through one more activity before we were released. We woke up early to start and finished around noon. Then we assembled in the ballroom for a final discussion on what we had learnt from this experience. Before the discussion began, Chriz and a few others attacked Tim, one of the facilitators and signed on his t-shirt with a marker. Tim put up a fight but was overpowered. I added my signature to his t-shirt with a red marker :P Before our discussion and group work, Evan [another facilitator] sang while playing his guitar and all of us were required to help make each other relax by massaging the shoulders of the people beside us. Then, we were required to share our thoughts on our team building experience, discuss about what we have learnt and do a group work. After all that, we took a group pic [which took ages. We had many takes before we finally had a perfect pic. Too many people in a pic is really hard to handle]. After some singing, thanking the facilitators for the training and more picture taking, we [Chriz, Alice, Alan, YY and I] checked out, loaded our luggages into Chriz' car and left for KL.
On our way back, we stopped for lunch at Hai Peng. The food there were small in portion but very delicious. I bought some coffee and kaya for mom. Apparently, this coffee house is very famous for its kaya and coffee. It came out on lots of newspapers and magazines and even an Astro chinese channel show. Wow...
Alan again demonstrated his inability to take pictures on the way back. We asked him to take a group pic of all of us in the car. He took and took but still 1 person's face will either be missing or blocked by someone else. We shouted at him to make the effort to take a nice group pic. He got geram so when we were stopping at a red light, he said "Na, faster faster, huddle. Take pics right? I'll take it!!" And he kept on snapping and snapping, insisted that we stay still and he snapped as many pictures as he could so that, according to him, surely 1 picture will turn out ok. BUT! Not 1 picture turned out ok. Sigh... Alan, you lousy la!!
We laughed all the way back, stopped at a rest stop along the highway [where YY demonstrated her photo taking skills to Alan. With just 2 takes, she managed to snap a really nice group pic of us] then stopped at a McDonald's at Genting Sempah because Chriz and Alan wanted to eat sundaes and YY, Alice and I urgently needed to go to the toilet. Then, Chriz dropped each of us back home [really nice of her to do that].
It was a really really fun trip. I thought that I'd be miserable the entire time but I was wrong. I had a really great time. The journey to and from Kijal was filled with laughter all the way. The activities I did for team building made me discover that I have the ability to do things I never even dreamt possible. I felt really good! The teamwork and team spirit was great. I don't mind going for more of these kind of trainings. And I definitely can't wait to go for more road trips with my colleagues : )
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