Balance

Team-Building
Everyone woke up early to have some light breakfast before going to beachside for the teambuilding games. Earlier, we were broken up into 4 balanced teams before the trip. It cut down so much time needed to reorganize everyone under the burning sun.

The first game: Face-off against each other to …. name your opponent! The rule is simple. Just name the person of the opposing team according to his/her passport (full name). Moral of the game: Take an effort to know everyone from your company. It is hilarious to see people trying to figure out the Chinese name, when we use to call each other in English names and even worst still, trying to say out a full Indian name.

The second game: Move across the finishing line with all team members staying within the space provided (Newspaper). It is kind of hard when you have 10 members trying to squeeze to constrain within piece of newspaper.

The third game: A game of math and organization. The game master will shout out a number and the teams would need to add up to the amount. The rules are that you are restricted to the number of your teammates (10 person) and each person must be in any of the numbers. The other groups had an accountant each in their group but so what? My group has two programmers! LOL. Calculations settled easily.

The fourth game: A combination of ‘Fill water into the bottle’ and ‘Pass the message’. It’s a challenging game where you need to gather enough water as well as remember the message to pass to your team mate.

The final game: Pictionary on the Sand. Each team would select 3 members to draw a item for the rest of the team to guest. There were four rounds of items to draw, so we would need to rotate our roles and have each members given a chance to participate. It is no sweat for each team as there is a whole pool of artists (and those who think that they are artist) among us.

When all the games were completed, the game masters gathered to tally up the scores. I reckon my team did quite well and would be at least 2nd place. True enough the game masters announced the score and there was a tie with another group at first place! So we are down to the final death match of … Name Your Opponent again!
Sadly, my team lost … but Congrats to the other team.

Nasi Padang
For lunch, we went to try out the local food called Nasi Padang. It’s like a small buffet with small servings of various dishes which I cannot name. The favourite phrase at lunchtime was “Please pass me the … whatever that yellow thingy is”

Pura Tanah Lot
Pura Tanah Lot is a temple which sits on an offshore rock formation. It has a mythological background in which the temple was build to worship the Bali Sea God. At its base, it is the home of poisonous sea snakes, the holy guardians of the temple.
This temple is one of the seven important sea shrines in Bali which are actually within eyesight of one another to form a mythical ‘protection chain’ to safeguard Bali. Read more about Tanah Lot Here.

Pura Taman Ayun
Pura Taman Ayun (Garden Water Temple) is one of six royal temples in Bali. It was the royal temple for the Mengwi Dynasty in the 17th Century. According to our tour guide, this temple was always packed with worshipers in its high time.

It was actually built on an ‘island’ in a river and the main temple buildings are surrounded by a moat. When we first reach the temple, we saw some villagers fishing along the river banks. We cannot go into the main structure but can only walk around the moat and take pictures of the temple from the outside.

Hu’u Bar
Dinner on this night was at a fancy fine-dining restaurant called Hu’u Bar. We were required to dress up nicely for this occasion. The food was … let just say it’s fine dining. It is nice but in portion half the size you would pay for it.

I actually found out from the site that Hu’u Bar is part of a boutique package created to provide an entire Bali sensation to its customers, ranging from food, art, architecture, music, wedding service and surf. Not bad of an Idea …

Party @ Kuta
Here comes the much awaited MFX Party! At first we wanted to go to this famous Club 66. What is so exciting about this Club you might ask … This club has it’s own bungee jump.

It was a short five minutes walk from the main road as the bus was unable to go through the small lane. For some reason, the Club was without activity on that night, so we went to another club instead, which so happened has an owner who knew Moon! And so we partied here instead!

So what’s great about partying with your boss? You don’t have to pay for it!

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 1
• Bali Day 3
• Bali Day 4
• Bali Recap
• Thanks to the Photographers

Bags - Before

Cheras
4.00am - Woke Up to an exciting day. Gathered my bags packed before I slept earlier and off I go to the office. My luggage load - 2 bags.

MFX
5.00am - Was the second person to reach office and promptly prepared the luggage tags and storage for all our car keys. Most of the people will be leaving their cars in the ofice - the safest and free parking throughout the period we are gone.

Luggage Check-In

LCCT
6.30am - Reached LCCT. This is the first time in our company trip history of us taking AirAsia. Most of us do not know what to expect (Alas, too much Thai Airways and MAS). It is a lot smaller than KLIA than I expected. Went through the luggage checkin counter as usual

Next stop is the Duty-Free Shop. In past history of our trips, I usually have to round up a few musclemen to carry all the alcohol load. It was always the ‘Amazing Race’ feeling to run all the way to the Departure Gate. I remember 2 years back where they were announcing our names one by one while we were still paying at the store.

Alcohol List

This time round, LCCT’s Duty Free Store is just next to the passenger seats which are next to the departure gate.

We actually have a checklist of alcohol to buy but everything did not go according to plan. Who would have thought that the Duty-Free Shop has only 3 Red Wines!??
Our revised alcohol purchase : 3 Black Labels, 6 Chivas, 3 Red Wines (!!!), 1 White Wine(!!!), 2 Bacardis, 3 Vodkas & 6 Tequillas. And off we fly, 49 buggers on a company trip to Bali.

Ketupat Restaurant

Ketupat Restaurant
1.30pm - Touchdown at Ngurah Rai International Airport, Denpasar, Bali Island. Split ourselves into two coaches and off we go to our first destination, Ketupat Restaurant where we first taste Bali food.
First impression of Bali food - Appertizingly delicious!
First impression of Bali/Indonesian Names - Awfully confusing! Duck or ‘Itik’ is known as ‘Bebek’, among others …

Hotel Padma Bali
After lunch, we check-in into our Hotel, the 5-Star, Hotel Padma Bali

The Invasion of the hotel

Nice perspective of the rooms

Uluwatu Cliff

Pura Luhur Uluwatu
A short break later, we are off to our first temple visit. It was about an hour’s journey to Uluwatu to visit Pura Luhur Uluwatu, literary translated as ‘Divine Water Rock Temple’. This is the temple with the most spectacular view as it is perched on the edge of a cliff which looks down onto the great surfing beach.

Uluwatu Sunset

Pura Luhur Uluwatu - Top View

I tried locating Uluwatu of Google Maps but it was not updated to the finest details. So I went snooping on the net to find how this place looked like from the sky and this is what I discovered.

At sunset, there are a group of performers who would perform the ‘Kecak Dance’. According to Wikipedia’s Kecak entry, Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting “cak” and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana.
Unfortunately, we had an incident with one of the monkeys occupying the temple (reminds me of Bukit Bendera) here where it took and broke Alan’s glasses.

Jimbaran Bay

Jimbaran Bay
We then proceed to the Jimbaran Bay Restaurants. The bay is basically a row of barbeque seafood stalls with all the table setups at the beach. First of all, we have to brave through serious air pollution of the barbecue stalls before we step onto the beachside sittings. It is very beautiful to see a long stretch of candlelit beachside. Fortunately we do not have to wait long as everything has been planned. When the food arrived, the first to do is … to take a picture of it! Lobster & fish as main dish with sotong, potato, and veg as side dish on a large plate.

Seafood Platter

After a scrumptious dinner, we rode the buses back to Kuta. Some of us went for a nightlife preview in Kuta town while the rest head back to the hotel. Since we did not even have the time to look at the facilities of the hotel (and the beach), I joined a few of the guys to stroll to the beach.
- End of Day 1 -

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 2
• Bali Day 3
• Bali Day 4
• Bali Recap
• Thanks to the Photographers