Lumut Departmental Trip

This post is long overdue.

One of the reason is due to work, I’m being swallowed whole by the many layers of documents on my desk.

The other reason is slightly personal, it’s a very very important day yesterday. No time~~

The Lumut trip is a weekend thing. Simple 2D1N event. Even so many people including me am looking forward to it. Heck, anything that doesn’t involve work is interesting.

NOTE: I got wind that this is a departmental trip. There’s a group trip, and a company trip in the works. Goes to show how much we all hated work and how the partners are such good and kind and generous people and how we love them so very very much ~~ apple polishing in case they are reading.

The firm got along another company to plan the entire thing, like I say, no talents are wasted on planning the event other than writing a cheque. To be fair to the organizers, they did a great job there making our lives miserable.

Let me explain.

The trip is over 200KM long. Shouldn’t take more than 2 hours driving at snail gear. But because we are such early people, we cannot get a hotel oom later than 3pm, thus we had to stretch that 2 hours into a 7 hours trip across the lands.

And the best way to do that is a treasure hunt. It explains why Sook Theng and Tze Lun was there so early in 1U parking lot where we flagged off.

 

During the wee hours they happened to be the first, and I was second. I have no idea who else was third because I happened to realize something.

 

I LEFT MY CAMERA MEMORY CARD AT HOME!!! NOOOOO!!!

 

As a result, all the photos on this blog post are taken with my N82. Bless it.

We took lots of pictures there while waiting for the rest of the crowds to arrive. Except those that are not there, Partners, Managers, Seniors are all there.

We sure la camwhore with everything we got! Handphones, compacts, SLR’s, d-SLR’s, pro-SLR, more SLR etc..

^ Me, Voon Siew, Mr Singam (notice how polite I was, he’s a director!)

 

^ Sweet-Girl-I-Forgot-Her-Name, Alex, Marvin, Ivan, Red Swift (hidden)

Coming back to the flag off, Tze Lun’s group had a major setback. Their sleeping member is really that.. sleeping. As a result, they had to ‘relocate’ their car ’somewhere’ so that those people behind, aka ‘me’ can go ahead.

Wee~

 

^ Nice… flag! Notice where is the Black MyVi. Nyek Nyek Nyek..

The treasure hunt is pure absolute hellish brutal torture. 30 questions of pain and 3 other special ‘treasures’ of HURT that we have to get along the way means BYE BYE fuel economy. And this was after 1L = RM2.70. Dammnn~

I had Voon Siew as my navigator and Mr Singam as the brains behind the front seat. We tried as much as we can but we’re honestly enjoying the scene more than anything.

 

Nothing less than a tornado will stop us from reaching our goal of getting back home alive.

^ Trees and more leaf-less trees.

As with any journey worth 7 hours of fuel, we saw 8 kanduris, 3 accidents, a couple of lembus along the way and more roadkill than I can possibly KKND under my wheels. That’s saying they had been there for a couple of days.. and no I didn’t check it out with a stick.

 

^ No I didn’t take a photo of a car crash in motion. Everything is dead still when I reach, it’s just my camera going on slow mo shutter. And that’s a motorcycle under the red Daihatsu. Yes the cyclist is A-OK.. Yeesh.. questions.

Lalala times flies when you are flying at 130 on a 60 road that goes straight into the horizon. Serious! There’s this trunk road with conditions so good it’s hard to think that KL CANNOT EVEN COMPARE!

There’s  2 painted bike lane on both sides of the road, 4 lanes both ways for cars, 1 center lane for cars turning to the right or coming from the right to merge into traffic, all in all 7 lanes for a trunk road. Gosh.. and we only get 3 lanes with a busted up divider.

At the end of the hunt where we acted like we got all 30 questions when we just wrote whatever we saw along the way (including a map) just so we don’t hand in a blank sheet, we got a warrior to welcome us for a good stay. Must be a sight for western tourists. But they aren’t Maoris. Maybe we are sending the wrong message across. Damn, we are sending the wrong person to welcome guests in the first place.

 

The journey from the trunk road to the first security checkpoint is 15 minutes, then another 30 minutes of blind faith to reach the welcome gate, then another 10 minutes to finally reach the warrior dude. Did I mention he’s surrounded by people in T-Shirts and Jeans? Totally off the grid man!

We newbies had to perform a show later evening but since the bulk of the group is still MIA, we had time to spare at the beach.

Again due to my KO’ed camera, my sub had to sub in. Meaning no more cute shots instead I get unlit shots. Which means since I can’t see my friend’s face, I’m sticking to my story that I WANT IT THAT WAY. Which is yea, isn’t it photogenic? I mean the sea water ;)

^ More overexposed shots

^ Voon Siew the paper cutout.

 

^ Water colour effects on water.

 

^ This picture better be worth RM2500 cause my handphone almost got soaked. I was trying to take a close (but not that close) shot of the water surface when the moon and the sun and the wind and gravity all gang up on me producing a swell out of nowhere. It was a close call, as close as getting the camera lens wet and me frantically shaking the phone and stuffing tissues into the lens compartment and praying hard I took a good photo.. Yes it was good. :)

 

^ We came back from the beach to find Marvin doing his Egyptian dance moves in preparation of the dinner event later.

I must say that I swore after Form 5 not to wear another uniform EVER AGAIN and so although the dinner theme was back to school, NO WAY IN HELL AM I DRESSING UP FOR SCHOL ;)

Especially not if I’m getting ragged on anyway for being a newbie. Since I’m destined to go for a show on my expense, might as well I keep the promise to myself. But I do got pictures though, not as good as my Sony cam but good enough to see faces la.

 

The emcee was right in saying that it’s his honour to see that much school children’s with ciggas and booze in the same room. Complete with scouts and St Johns too.

    

It’s a wonder how everyone still had their old uniforms with them. Even more surprising that they STILL CAN FIT IN their old uniforms. I guess all the late nights are helping in that department.

Us newbies are casual, just like this:

 

After the main dinner (which was fantastic), and the movie (which was funny since everyone was laughing AT us), there’s a second round where handphones and cameras are not allowed in.

I wouldn’t want to dwell on that since most of us went in sober and don’t recall coming out (em..). I believe all newbies had to get at least 4 shots of whatever and down another 10 seconds of don’tcareanymore without a stopper (since no one had any with them). I’d say we all passed with flying colors. Not sure if those color are real or imaginary though.

I can only recall I down everything, then got back to the room, down another 2 glass full of tap water and went to bed. That plus the load of lamb, beef and pasta during dinner helped in getting a good sleep and SURPRISE, no hang over the next day! I have found the miracle cure for hangover! It’s called DON’T GET PISS DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE!

Woke up on Day 2 and realize Lumut is on the west cost. The beach is DEVOID of the usual fur-less monkeys that gaze off romantically into nothing. Sun goes up, wind blows up, tide comes in. Damn.. no syok in getting up at 7 and not seeing a sunrise.

Again.. picture time!

 

^ The beach isn’t clean, it’s full of photogenic garbage and sexy charcoals.

^ See what I mean? I had no subjects other than dead leaves and twigs.

 

 

 

The resort we’re staying at is supposedly a 5 star resort. But other than the 5 I saw on the sky, nothing gave me that impression of a well maintained fun resort, thus no names.

There’s cycling (boring), golf (yawn), jungle trekking (routine stuff) and spa (too expensive).

They had sea based activity but we’re only here for an overnight sleep so not really in the mood to enjoy the sea. Besides, who wants to get wet (fun) and then dry (lunch) then wet (fun) then dry (time to leave).

^ Yea, who indeed.

 

Notice the water depth. She’d be saying:

“Nice meeting you!” and we’d reply

“Yea, it’s so hard to kayak in these deep waters!”

*walks back to shore*

 

The only interest we had was archery. But this ain’t ClubMed. The archery range was only 5 meters long. Fortunately it is offset by the equally twisted arrows. Nobody actually got a bullseye because the arrows would go AWOL the moment it’s loose. The squirrel lunch was good though.

 

^ Tze Lun can do it with eyes closed. Thanks for the lunch!

Archery lasts only a moment since there’s only 2 lanes and it’s getting boring that we’re not hitting bullseye. There must be something wrong with the wind that day. We’re melting from all the ’strong’ sunlight and so had to hid ourselves until lunch is served.

^ Lunch is served.. guess where’s the squirrel.

:)

The trip home was another story I’d rather not tell. In short it would be a bunch of desperate, tired, hangover drivers in 3 cars attempting to find a route that leads to a highway but the search was in vain and we took another 7 hours but on a shorter route (?!?!) back home. Yea, shorter but longer in duration, back home.. to a traffic jam.