4 days 3 nights company trip to Phuket, Thailand.

Urrgghh….I’m so tired. I will quickly finish writing this post about the company trip that I had just went to and then I will jump to the bed right away. I have just returned home early today from the trip (2am!), slept at 3am and then got to go to work at 9am. Huh…seriously exhausted from all the intense partying, dramas and lack of sleep during the entire trip.

However, it was still a fun get-together with colleagues (over 30 staff) and not to mention that I got to visit this beautiful island of Phuket in southern Thailand. Thailand is the fifth country I visited this year (after Australia, Japan, UAE and China) and it’s my first time visiting Phuket. Surprisingly, this is also my first company trip even though I am already in this company for almost 5 years.

Day 1 – 25th August 2023 (Friday)

Gathered early in the airport for breakfast and lunch before taking an afternoon flight (one and a half hour only) to Phuket. Checked in at the hotel (Holiday Inn Resort) which is located at the Patong Beach area. Joined most of the colleagues for dinner at Three Monkeys Restaurant before heading to the Bangla Road, Phuket’s entertainment hub filled with night clubs, lively music and happening street.

Went into one of the nightclubs and had some drinks with colleagues. This is the first time in my life that I drank that much (fortunately I was not drunk but was very dizzy though). Back to hotel via tuk-tuk ride and only got to sleep at around 3am.

Day 2 – 26th August 2023 (Saturday)

It was a lazy day for most of us after all the drinking and hangover last night. Went out for a walk around Patong Beach, streets and some shopping centers. It was so much quieter during the day. After the long walks, we stay in one of the prettier cafes in the vicinity just opposite the beach to quench our thirst, rest and chat for hours.

Right after sunset, we head to Chillva Market, a cool and trendy night market that offer impressive selection of food and fashion stalls. There are also many seating places with live music that made it such a vibrant market. Our colleagues brought us back to Bangla Road to chill in a bar (drinking again but less intensive this time…haha) until late night again. Back to hotel and slept at around 2am.

Day 3 – 27th August 2023 (Sunday)

After the breakfast in the hotel, I joined a small group on a half-day private tour around Phuket. The tour guide brought us to some famous places in the island. I recalled visited several viewpoints up above hills that offer spectacular panoramic views of the bays, the islands and the ocean.

The tour guide also brought us to visit Phuket’s Big Buddha, a giant Buddha statue on top of Nakkerd Hill. Before that, we also got to feed some bananas to an elephant along the route to the Big Buddha. I have just visited another Big Buddha last month in Hong Kong and here I am seeing another one.

After that, we made our way to visit Wat Chalong Temple. It is the largest and most revered Buddhist temple in Phuket. The tallest building on the temple grounds is a 60 meters tall stupa (chedi) sheltering a bone fragment of Lord Buddha. 

We then went for a late lunch on a seafood restaurant by the sea before heading back to the hotel to rejoin with all of our colleagues for company’s team bonding session at the beach. We played some games (bosses were involved too). After that, we had a brief walk along the beach and then stayed for a short while at our hotel’s swimming pool for chit-chatting with colleagues as well.

In the end, we had seafood buffet at the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel as our company dinner. The night just couldn’t end with colleagues persuading as many people as possible to join them for ‘chilling’ session. Haha….I just followed along since it’s already the last night of the trip. Couldn’t escape a single night there without drinking. Haha. I just drank a glass of cocktail on that evening. Have had enough. I’m so glad that I can sleep a little earlier that night (around 1am).

Day 4 – 28th August 2023 (Monday)

After checking out at noon, me and some of my friends went to the Old Phuket Town to explore and buy some souvenirs. The area filled with historical shop/town houses immediately remind us of Penang or Malacca. There are also some hipster cafes, cool street arts and temples around the town. Before leaving the town, we managed to get a comfortable 1-hour foot and neck massage.

Went back to the hotel in the afternoon to rejoin with our whole group to make our way to the airport for flight back to Singapore in the evening. Only managed to reach home after midnight as stated earlier.

Phuket do lives up to its name as being a very popular tourist destination in Thailand. Worth a second visit since the island is so huge and there’s still so much more to see and experience from this island. Will certainly come back again to this place in future (and it’s quite near too especially from Malaysia; Phuket is actually just 13 hours drive away from KL).

Lights’ installations and projection mappings @ SG Night Festival 2023.

Yes! We have gotten ourselves to another weekend! Awesome!…It has been quite a short week for me though as I was on medical leave on last Monday (due to serious neck and shoulder pain since the week before). The whole week appeared to flown by so quickly as I was rushing everyday to get my works done for a submission yesterday.

My neck is getting better fortunately (after over a week!) but I think it still needs few more days to recover fully. It is getting there…This weekend started slightly earlier as I only worked for half day yesterday. I got a friend who was transiting in Singapore yesterday and I offered myself to be his tour guide for the day since it was his first time here after his previous visit to this country around two decades ago.

I brought him to Chinatown, Plaza Singapura mall, Suntec City mall and definitely the Marina Bay area which is a must to see all the iconic sights like the Merlion, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Flyer, Gardens by the Bay and the CBD skyline. I passed as a tour guide…haha. It shall be his turn to be my tour guide when I visit Hong Kong next time (which is likely going to be next year).

As for today, I head out in the evening to check out the on-going Singapore Night Festival 2023. The festival which runs on every evening from 18th to 26th August 2023 took place around the cultural districts from City Hall, Bras Basah and then all the way to Bugis. It features experiential programmes, food and retail experiences, night lights installations and dynamic projection mappings. I am only keen on the latter two. Here are some of the shots I took:

Hence, it was my mission this evening to walk around the area and check out most of the night lights installations and all of the projection mappings (only happens at CHIJMES and National Museum of Singapore). I remembered I checked out this annual festival once or twice before previously and I felt this year’s presentations were a bit lackluster or underwhelming. The festival still manage to attract huge crowds though.

Back to KL for the state election and it’s my first time casting my vote!

I have purposely flown back to KL from Singapore yesterday for the state election that is happening today. 6 states in Malaysia are involved in this election (my state Selangor is included). I’m already over 30 but this is actually the first one I’m voting. The reason is that I was coincidentally not around (oversea) during the last two General Elections (GE).

The first GE that I skipped was back in 2018. I remembered that time I have just moved to Singapore and started my job for a few days. I do not have any leave and it feels not good to apply for one so soon after I just joined in. Hence, I decided not to return to vote. The second GE that I skipped happened only last year. I was in New Zealand during that time for my working holiday. Didn’t have time to apply for postal voting too because we were so occupied with our intense road trip that time.

Although the election today is just at state level, but I still feel the need to finally come back to cast my vote as a responsible Malaysian. First time experience is always an exciting one. I went to the primary school in our neighbourhood with my eldest sister early this morning to cast our votes. The election staff were very friendly and helpful in directing us to our respective rooms to vote. There’s no crowd/queue this morning and we finished our voting in 5 minutes. That was really quick…

As expected, there would be much lower turnout of voters this time around as many are getting tired of the politics here and the last GE just occurred end of last year. I’m expecting a balanced outcome at the end of the day; 3 states won by the ruling bloc of PH and BN and 3 states to be won by the opposition bloc of PN. I don’t foresee any much surprises and if they do happen, then there must a lot of interesting dramas going on this evening.

On the other hand, I’m recently being troubled by this neck and shoulder pain since Wednesday. This is already Day 4. The pain was getting more serious today which is in huge contrast to yesterday when I was actually feeling relieved that my condition appears to be improving. I ended up paying a visit to a traditional Chinese acupuncture clinic just now. I still didn’t get any better after receiving treatments there though. Hmm…now thinking and trying every possible way to get it resolved. It’s so painful especially when waking up from bed (obvious sign of me getting old…haha).

First time attending NDP show in conjunction with Singapore’s 58th birthday today!

Happy National Day to Singapore! It’s the country’s 58th birthday today (9th August 2023)! Besides than enjoying the off day, I also got to attend the National Day Parade (NDP) earlier just now. Huge thanks to my landlord who had two extra tickets to the show and gave it to me for free just two days ago. I have watched the past NDP shows from YouTube before but have never watched it in person until today. It was fun!

By the way, I have never even watched my own country’s National Day parade (Malaysia) in person for the past 30 over years of my life. Haha…This year’s Singapore NDP was held at Padang from 5.30pm to 8.30pm. I brought along one of my friends to attend the celebratory show together. We reached Raffles Place MRT station before 4pm and made our way to the Padang.

After going through security checks and collecting our goodie bags, we were then directed to our respective seating zones (free seating; seating zones were assigned by colours only). We waited from 4.10pm until 5.30pm under the hot sun (it was super sunny today!) before the show commenced while the entire seating areas around the stage were slowly filled up to the maximum capacity.

There were parades from various uniform bodies, floats, presidential gun salute as well as performances by local artists which made us felt like we were watching a concert at one point of the time. Of course, there was the Red Lions performance (military free fall segment) that captivated most if not all of the audiences. I was having quite a serious neck pain today (must be from my improper sleeping posture last night) and hence I was really facing quite some difficulties looking over to the sky just now to spot the Red Lions parachuting from high above to the Padang.

There was also the highly anticipated aerial fly pasts and of course the fireworks to end the show. As the fireworks were shot from the Marina Bay, we hardly can see the fireworks from the Padang where the NDP was held as most of the seating areas are facing the opposite direction and not towards the Marina Bay (except for the VIP seats).

Here below is the picture of the fireworks not from today, but from a preview show weeks ago taken from Marina Bay Sands.

Singapore’s President, Madam Halimah Yacob was there. The Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong was there along with his cabinet ministers too to enjoy the show. When it came to the singing of the national anthem (twice during the NDP), surprisingly we joined in and sing along. We do wish for ‘Majulah Singapura’ (means ‘Go forward, Singapore’) too so that their currency kept on increase in value and then that would be good for us, Malaysians who work here. Haha…

After the NDP ended, we left the area immediately (along with thousands other people) and joined two more friends at the nearby Suntec City mall for dinner before heading back home respectively. What a day! It was really a fun and interesting experience attending the NDP. The goodie bag which was given to each attendees is nice-looking and contains quite a lot of stuff including snacks, Singapore flag, hand sanitizer, wet tissues, foldable fan (very much needed during the show!), shirt pins, etc.

By the way, a huge round of applause for all the performers and volunteers who did so much for the show. That’s it for the holiday today! Have to get back to work tomorrow sadly. It’s okay. Two more days before weekend arrives.

Filled the weekend with a movie and a lot of cycling.

There goes the end of another weekend. I just came back not long ago from watching a movie at a theatre with my friend. There are a lot of new movies recently in cinemas that I’m interested in such as the Mission Impossible 7, Oppenheimer, Meg 2, Elemental, and yup…even Barbie. But for today, we chose to watch ‘Indiana Jones’ instead.

‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ is the fifth and final installment in the classic Indiana Jones film series. Harrison Ford back as Indy in yet another adventure to locate long lost treasures. I’m all in. The film also starred Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Ethann Isidore, etc. Set in 1969, the film follows Jones and his estranged goddaughter, Helena, who are trying to locate a powerful artifact before Jürgen Voller, a Nazi-turned-NASA scientist who plans to use it to alter the outcome of World War II.

The film is generally okay but I felt it lacks the excitement from the earlier films in the series. It still has some exciting action sequences and I do have fun watching the movie just now. Harrison Ford still has it with his signature hat for the character despite his age (he is currently 81 years old already). And why am I always seeing Mads Mikkelsen playing villain role everywhere? Perhaps his face is really suitable for evil characters and he did it well every single time.

This latest film isn’t as good as its predecessors but I find that it is still a good finish/concluding chapter to the film series. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ a total of 7.2.

As for yesterday, I went out for cycling; not alone this time but with my friends. And it was the longest ever cycling I had since I started learning on this a couple of months ago. Usually I would only cycled about 8km. But for yesterday, I cycled more than double of that; over 17km in total. It may seems easy for experienced cyclist but not for a beginner cyclist. So I do felt great after having done that yesterday. However, my leg doesn’t felt like my leg anymore (a bit pain including my ass…haha) after the ride last night.

We started our bike ride from Marina Bay Sands (almost 7pm) all the way to Marina Barrage and then to the East Coast Park. We stopped for about 2 hours and had our dinner there before continuing our ride all the way to Bedok North (passing through Siglap Park Connector). It was very happening over at the East Coast Park yesterday even when it was already dark and late in the evening. Many camps set-up along the waterfront and on-going picnics with people having feasts, dancing, large gatherings and so on. The last part of the ride was quite tough with frequent uphill riding (most tiring!). We ended the cycling at about 11pm and I reached home right before midnight. It was exhausting but fun!

(Images in this post are from various online sources)