ECQ Retreat 2005 : Day 1

Journey to Paya (not papaya hor...)

Finally the day has come, after weeks of preparation, from planning the game to making the banner... Reached Woodlands Checkpoint at around 7am... 5 people were already here, DT and wife, ZK and wife and AY. PK and PS were late... and to think PK volunteered to coordinate the people here at the Checkpoint. Soon after, it started to rain rather heavily... I thought OMG... bad start to the day...

The main group arrived at around 715am from office and I was told that we would need to squeeze into one bus from here to JB checkpoint before switching to two Malaysian Coaches. But then there were still people who haven't arrived yet. We almost wanted to leave without the last person, but luckily she managed to come in the nick of time...

We need not wait long to clear the custom, unlike a normal trip here to JB where 1 to 2 hours wait is a norm. After clearing the custom, the tour lead brought the whole group to Rasa Sentosa (if I remembered the name correctly) for breakfast. A typical coffeeshop not much different from Singapore except that they don't have the drink that I've wanted to order... From there we continue our journey to Tanjong Gemok, where we would be taking the ferry to our destination, Pulau Tioman. The journey took about 3 hours or so but we still managed to reached the ferry terminal ahead of the scheduled time... Nothing special about the ferry ride, most of the people was taking a nap as the day had started earlier than usual...

By the time we reached the island, it was already 130pm... and the lunch was not even ready at the resort (btw we stayed at Paya Beach Resort)... But bo bian also, gotta had a quick lunch and then setup the various stations for the game... As usual, Boss had a quick opening speech for the retreat before the ESC members, P and WW split up the whole group into different teams for the game by issuing colored bands... As I was part of the game organizers, I was excused from playing the game... Luckily the whether was good here on the island, else I don't think we would be able to find an indoor area to carry on with the game...

Let the Game Begin

This year's teambuilding game was modelled to the Game of Life... the objective was to earn as much 'money' (ECQ notes... designed by CK, the ESC Chairman) as possible for the duration of the game... There were 2 main areas work and training area (3 actually if you include the holding area, which I was manning)... In the early part of the game everyone was rushing to the training area as some work requires certain certification... Almost everyone was crowding around this area, as my designated area had nothing much to do at this point of time, went there to help out...

As the game goes, PK was the first to be buried in the sand... once he started the ball rolling, more people follow suit... Newbie was next...but they never thought of covering themselves with towel or newspaper, like the rest, before being buried... Linda's daughter got a huge advantage for burying with her small size... Memory game was also rather popular especially with the Dota gang... quite surprised that the new lady, LP, could also memorise the Dota Heroes in such a short time... Folding paper cranes takes time, but with the instruction sheets given, it was a rather simple task...

Our CFO was constantly making announcement throughout the game that really spice things up a little... these ranging from jailing people for plucking leaves to running for presidency... and =.= was tasked to round up the people who flouted the law... The first to be put into the holding area was TL if I remembered correctly...

By mid-game all the people were crowding around the work area... So I went over to help S, WW and XY who were manning that area... making sand cubes, pasting leaves and solving puzzles and riddles, the people were busy working away... I think the riddle solving really make some of them crack their heads... some of the questions were rather 欠扁 while others requires a bit of logic and maths... The new sales guy Darius was stumped by the question about egg hatching...

Soon after, the game had come to an end, and everyone was shuffled back to the super crampy KTV room for a debrief and prize giving... CFO gave a quick briefing on what the whole game was about and related it to work... It was not a debrief that everyone was hoping for, judging by the looks on their face... However, we still had to bear through the ordeal... And after tallying the total amount earnt by all the teams, SJ's team came out on top, with something like ECQ$36K... hehe...

Rest and Relax before Dinner

By this time, it was about 5 + and S proceed to give out the room keys to the people... then everyone went to their repective rooms to have a good shower and take a bit of rest... went back to room for a quick shower and wondered around my area a bit... I was rooming with =.= and our room was beside FL, S and XY's... Played a bit of card game (big 2) before the time comes for dinner.

Dinner and 8th Month Auction

Dinner starts at around 7 and the ESC members proceeded to give out the new ECQ polo tee just before dinner. It so happens that the tees were labelled with the names of individuals, so as we gave out all the tees, we noticed that 2 people were missing... It was later found out that the 2 (D and M) were sleeping in their room... Shortly after dinner, CTO gave a short speech about SOP and its direction for the future... CTO kept his word and the speech was really short...

Then the ESC kicked off the 8th month Auction (Survivor style), hosted by CK, and in between, slot in a bit of Q n A... The items up for grabs ranging from mini magnetic games, tidbits to mooncakes and gift vouchers... not every team got their items valued for the money... I think every team did successfully bid for at least one item though... Was supposed to have the lantern carrying session later that night but the weather dictates otherwise...

Defense of The Ancient at Pulau Tioman

It wasn't a surprised that we are still able to DOTA at the Retreat, the same happens last year but it was still WC III at that time... This time around we got about 6 laptops all cramped into JZ's room... I've taken over from PS after he left and I teamed up with DM and Obi... the other team comprises of Temp, Newbie and =.=... even without a mouse, Newbie played pretty well and my team was kena owned... anyway played only 1 game for the day and went back to my room after that...

Back to my room, and found that it was pretty crowded.... the people were playing Pictionary on =.=' s bed, altogether around 8 ~ 9 people... and so i just join in the fun... I think my drawing skill sucks and probably a little bit better a guessing the word with my limited vocabs... anyway we all had a great laugh and the game continues until about 2+ before the game ended...