Before I get into details - here are some brass-tacks. My office is located inside Sentosa Park (yes there are offices inside !!). I am currently staying in a quaint, "studio apartment" - in a large expansive site we have at Sembawang, which once used to be the school for British children, during WW II days. Feels tickled to have so much history around me. The Sembawang park near-abouts here was the site of some intense fighting they say, and to this day - there are tales of ghosts that frequent these parts. Having said that, Sembawang is one of the most beautiful parts of this lovely city of Singapore - with old colonial houses dotting the landscape, very broad roads flanked on either sides by lush greenery and a quiet that is seldom seen in any bustling city.
Day 1 started with a program that we were doing for NUS (National university of singapore) - a group of 22 students that had 19 nationalities between them. It was a team building activity. The extreme diversity meant it was great fun - lot of laughter and bonhomie by the time we got through with it. This was followed by a steady stream of varied programs for an assortment of companies like DBS, Maersk, Singtel. The added bonus for me, other than the learnings in the program itself, is that I get to sit in presentations of such varied companies and get a glimpse of how different companies in different industries think, plan and strategise.
There were two programs in particular that really stood out for me. The first one was a "Cookery Challenge" that we did for 120 employees of the Ministry of education. I never realised that cooking of all things could be made such fun !!.... everyone was given a fixed budget, the raw material was auctioned and then.... lo and behold in 60 mins flat.... we had 10 teams all preparing a starter, a main course and a dessert. And ofcourse the final products were garnished and decorated by the "chef de presentatione", such that the offering was not just tasty, but really beckoning to the eye too. Was genuinely tough coming out with a winner on that one.... but what the heck - with so much fun, everyone was a winner !!
The other program was one we did for a group of kids from Hongkong (averaging say 11 years) ... the facilitator was going through his normal routine and so asked the kids... "Kids, so what do you want from this program ?"..... just imagine his shock when the kids started rattling out one after the other...."XBox 360"....."PS2".....one even said "a 100 dollars" !!!!..... he somehow side-stepped that one. Then the next question..."ok tell me, what happens when you put two dogs and a cat together ?".... this was a pre-cursor to a funny slide where two dogs and a cat are co-operating to get some beer out of the refrigerator. So the expected answer was "they will fight"..."kill each other" or something like that. But again - kids are kids, most unpredictable : for the next 10 minutes the room was full of cats meowing and dogs barking. The poor facilitator could only hold his hips and laugh !!!
Towards the end of the week - caught a ferry and went down to Bintan, an island in Indonesia (visa on arrival - so no problem la). Bintan is a island that the Indonesian government is almost completely developing for tourism. Its got some really fabulous resorts and some of the most pristine seashores, extending for miles. Its also got large tracts of forest areas that make for good trekking. First day here, i.e Friday was a program we did for the Bintan Lagoon Resorts management team - with an interesting activity called "geo-caching", where teams are actually given a GPS receiver each and asked to track out pre-determined locations. Good fun in all. Second half was spent with a different division of our company - "Camp Challenge", which is focussed on youth development activities. Among other things, I got to climb a 25m high tower using ropes and steel clamps, played a session of paint-ball (an activity where everyone is given a gun with paint-ball bullets... imagine the rest) and at night, we had a night-walk in the forests nearby. Quite an eerie experience, considering that its designed such that - for most parts you end up walking alone, with only the sounds of the forest accompanying you.
Second day at Bintaan, early in the morning - we headed for Gunung Bintaan - for an ardous trek through the forests to reach atop the highest peak in Bintan. Somewhere 80% of the way up, I had the realisation dawn on me, that I am really getting older afterall. Totally out of breath and de-hydrated, somehow managed to reach the peak. Rest of the day, after we decended was dedicated mostly to sea sports. First there was the Jet ski safari.... followed by banana boat and then the most scary one of all - the "flying fish". Will not explain it in detail here, else i will cut out the fun for those of you planning to be here sometime. My advise : just dont miss it. We followed this with a circuit in the ATVs (All terrain vehicles).... and finally capped the evening with a session of beach volley ball. By that time, I was tanned - two shades darker now - and it got time back for our return ferry to Singapore.
Spent Sunday at home.... watching National day on T.V. Monday was a compensatory off here in Singapore. And that bought an end to a very exciting, eventful first few days at Singapore !!
There were two programs in particular that really stood out for me. The first one was a "Cookery Challenge" that we did for 120 employees of the Ministry of education. I never realised that cooking of all things could be made such fun !!.... everyone was given a fixed budget, the raw material was auctioned and then.... lo and behold in 60 mins flat.... we had 10 teams all preparing a starter, a main course and a dessert. And ofcourse the final products were garnished and decorated by the "chef de presentatione", such that the offering was not just tasty, but really beckoning to the eye too. Was genuinely tough coming out with a winner on that one.... but what the heck - with so much fun, everyone was a winner !!
The other program was one we did for a group of kids from Hongkong (averaging say 11 years) ... the facilitator was going through his normal routine and so asked the kids... "Kids, so what do you want from this program ?"..... just imagine his shock when the kids started rattling out one after the other...."XBox 360"....."PS2".....one even said "a 100 dollars" !!!!..... he somehow side-stepped that one. Then the next question..."ok tell me, what happens when you put two dogs and a cat together ?".... this was a pre-cursor to a funny slide where two dogs and a cat are co-operating to get some beer out of the refrigerator. So the expected answer was "they will fight"..."kill each other" or something like that. But again - kids are kids, most unpredictable : for the next 10 minutes the room was full of cats meowing and dogs barking. The poor facilitator could only hold his hips and laugh !!!
Towards the end of the week - caught a ferry and went down to Bintan, an island in Indonesia (visa on arrival - so no problem la). Bintan is a island that the Indonesian government is almost completely developing for tourism. Its got some really fabulous resorts and some of the most pristine seashores, extending for miles. Its also got large tracts of forest areas that make for good trekking. First day here, i.e Friday was a program we did for the Bintan Lagoon Resorts management team - with an interesting activity called "geo-caching", where teams are actually given a GPS receiver each and asked to track out pre-determined locations. Good fun in all. Second half was spent with a different division of our company - "Camp Challenge", which is focussed on youth development activities. Among other things, I got to climb a 25m high tower using ropes and steel clamps, played a session of paint-ball (an activity where everyone is given a gun with paint-ball bullets... imagine the rest) and at night, we had a night-walk in the forests nearby. Quite an eerie experience, considering that its designed such that - for most parts you end up walking alone, with only the sounds of the forest accompanying you.
Second day at Bintaan, early in the morning - we headed for Gunung Bintaan - for an ardous trek through the forests to reach atop the highest peak in Bintan. Somewhere 80% of the way up, I had the realisation dawn on me, that I am really getting older afterall. Totally out of breath and de-hydrated, somehow managed to reach the peak. Rest of the day, after we decended was dedicated mostly to sea sports. First there was the Jet ski safari.... followed by banana boat and then the most scary one of all - the "flying fish". Will not explain it in detail here, else i will cut out the fun for those of you planning to be here sometime. My advise : just dont miss it. We followed this with a circuit in the ATVs (All terrain vehicles).... and finally capped the evening with a session of beach volley ball. By that time, I was tanned - two shades darker now - and it got time back for our return ferry to Singapore.
Spent Sunday at home.... watching National day on T.V. Monday was a compensatory off here in Singapore. And that bought an end to a very exciting, eventful first few days at Singapore !!
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4 comments:
Roon,
you are obviously having tons of nfun La.
sounds so exciting, want to join you.
Office in Sentosa!! do you go by the ropeway every day??
have fun.
Yes RamG - so far so good... definitely having fun :-)... re sentosa, i could go by the ropeway, but i prefer the sentosa express which actually has a stop very close to our office :-)
Can't imagine what you were doing about 8 weeks back and what are doing now ... Kepp the fun thing going and keep us updated as well :)...
Rao la, you are having whale of a time la. The kids part was too good..enjoy la
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