Place: Bali, Indonesia
Stayed in: Alam Warna
Date: 13 August to 18 August 2010
Travelled by: Air Asia
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First time travelling with HY after knowing each other for more than a decade. We arrived at our Villa Phirus close to 1am on a friday night. The villa was huge, with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1 big pool, 1 jacuzzi, 1 living room, 1 dining area, 1 kitchen, 1 mini garden, 1 pond and 1 waterfall. We explored the every inch of it and were surprised & happy! hehe. Not wanting to sleep for the start of the trip, we jumped into the pool for a night swim until 3am.
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The first day started with the doorbell ringing at 9am. Brekkie was ready and set up at our dining table. Excitedly, we tried all kinds of brekkie the place offered. We left the hse at 11am and the hotel pple sent us to Kuta. Started the beach activities with some haggling with surfboards owner. The body board surfing was fun enough for me, as a beginner! After battling with the waves, we went to book for our white water rafting trip for the 2nd day and met some mad men. We went on to Made Warung for dinner. So hungry and thirsty that most of us ordered 2 drinks. We went some shopping and ended up with massage at Smart. After an hr of massage, we took a big cab to Ultimo for dinner. The place felt like dempsey with a fast food restaurant price. Nice ambience, yummy food and cheap price! We went to K Circle to stock up food & drinks. We bought so many things and ended up getting $70 worth of snacks! We went back to the hse and played with the pool again! The night ended with us watching the fireworks at KuDeTa!
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The 2nd day was an early morning. We went to a far far away place for white water rafting. We were so excited that we kept talking non-stop on the car journey. After a while, we realized that the driver was almost dozing off and felt quite scared. We tried to keep a lookout for him all the while. Finally, we reached the river for the 2-hr white water rafting. First time, quite fun when we kept falling off, rafting into waterfalls, splashing water at one another & falling off the 6m dam. However, the journey back to the top for lunch was endless steps. Argh! We went back home on a bumpy journey. All of us were so tired that we made no noise and slept throughout the 2 hr journey back. While si was doing her massage, we played with the water again! haha. After her massage, we went to a nearby Indonesian restaurant for dinner. We went to Seminyak Sq's Casa gourmet for some shopping and headed to Ku De Ta for some drinks. The place was nicely decorated due to their 10th year celebration. We went back home and recuperated.
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The 3rd day was lazing around in the villa, pool jumping and going to pak malem for babi guling. As there were no cab in sight and si was rushing off to the airport, 7 of us squeezed into a rather small cab! Faint. Things we do. haha. We finally reached seminyak with some slow traffic. We shopped around, got our beach package for the next day and went back to the villa to continue for more massage. While the rest were having their massage in the garden, beckii, sheena and i played daidee and the loser kena draw on the face~ We had ice-cream as well. After that, we went to Cafe Betawi for dinner! After dinner, we went to a mini provision shop near our place and headed back to play drinking games! all of us was kind of tipsy!
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The 4th day morning was parasailing, banana boating and flying fish at tanjung beach in nusa dua. flying fish made me feel like a kite. haha. Leen also finally found her Magnum ice-cream there. After which, we headed to Kuta for lunch. Leen brought us to this place called Bamboo Corner cafe. After lunch, we continued body board surfing in Kuta, watched the sunset and shopped in the small alley. We had our dinner at this Taman Sari Cottages. While buying our dresses from Uluwatu, hl and i saw a provision shop turned into a club. haha like khao san. After dinner, we headed back for more pool jumping and drinking games!!
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5th day was going to Seminyak beach for more surfing!! The beach was beautiful. The wave was so strong that we got drifted further and further away from our beach chair. There were moments when some of them were into the waves. scary. I finally caught more waves this time with the guidance of my master, leen! haha. We had lunch at some beach restuarant and headed home at 3pm...
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suffering from withdrawal now... :P

A long weekend finally. Met my ex-bosses for dinner and coffee on friday night. Had a potluck & mahjong session at sam's place on saturday. We had salad, fried bee hoon, steamed salmon, curry chicken, rojak, vietnamese po pian, potato salad, grapes, cherry tomatoes, cheng teng, secret recipe's chocolate cakes, moscato and indonesian coffee. many many food. 2 rounds of mahjongs before having mac hotcakes for brekkie at 6+am. Sunday was watching sorcerer's apprentice at filmgarde. been quite long for a movie on magic. nice movie but the lead can be cuter. haha. After which, we had dinner at pp, koi and dessert at cheesecake cafe. a weekend of nuaing & binge eating. Today I re watched one of my fav korean drama serial.

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4 more days to the long awaited bali trip.. miss the sun, sea & sand :)

I had never thought of going Jakarta until MMM was held there. MMM was a regional discussion on the destiny of a certain brand/category. The 4-day meeting began with us taking an hr or more to get through the custom. I can only say that the officers were really "detailed". It took us another hr or more to get to Kempinski Hotel, located in the central of Jakarta. The traffic was rather congested in the evening. The security at Kempinski was really tight. Bags must be checked at every entrance. Detectors were also there. Kempinski was built in the 60s and was recently renovated. The hotel was gorgeous for the price. Huge beds, nice bathtub (but also no chance to use), automated toilet, ipod dock (no need to bring charger) & so on. On the first night, we had a welcome dinner, hosted by Indonesia at Paulaner. As we all know, Paulaner equates to lots of meat and fresh beer. There were around 50 delegates mingling around. Most had been in the companies for decades and knew one another very well. A greenhorn like me had not many conversation topics except the performance of my previous company, hows the flight here, food & to certain people, the progress of my product development (which is very behind schedule), some cog issues or production issues.The night ended at 10ish with a pint of beer & live band. What a way to end a Monday night. The 2nd day, we woke up at 6am for breakfast and took a coach at 7am so as to reach the office at 8am. 1 hour journey. At the end of the day, we had trade visit in CF. Haha, everyone was excited to see the share of shelf, the packaging, the product claims, spotting new products etc. We had a sumptuous meal (hakka cuisine), hosted by LCJ. There were sea cucumber (the japanese called it namoko), scallops, lobsters, crabs etc. There were quite a number of hidden talents/singers in the group as well. Their voices were superb. 2nd night ended at 11pm. We were already too tired. The 3rd day started even earlier but it was more of light discussions and factory tour. 3rd night was f&e for dinner but it was so coincidental that 7 of the 9 countries went the same Indonesia restaurant despite the huge number of eating places.
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Overall, the meeting was insightful as each country exchanged their marketing ideas. The preparation of this meeting almost got me killed. Need to get started on the next steps ahead...

Happy Birthday to Sheena! We had steamboat at her place for the celebration. We met at 5+pm at e finest supermarket in PP (after beckii & i tried to study for our jap exam in cafe of art aka ex starbucks in pp library) and loaded the trolley with lotsa food & drinks (got too many food once again)! Loving tyrrells chips! I met LY at Watsons before buying koi bubble tea. Yummy. We reached her place at almost 7pm, did preparation and steamboat started at 8pm. We ate, sang song, gave pressies and started playing some drinking games while watching huo yuan jia. After which, we played a bit of mj, poker and ended the night at about 4am..
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Off to jakarta for the 3 days meeting later in the afternoon...