It is May 25, a thursday, but we are not in the office. Nope, I am not absent from work. In fact, all my officemates are not in the office, but, like me, are garbed in the company-provided Hawaiian pants and polos and seated in 5 huge buses. We are all set to go to Grande Island Resort, Subic Bay, Olongapo, for the team building of all P&G GBS employees.
Our bus leader distributes clubhouse sandwiches for breakfast, so I see there is no need to dig through my snack pack which they had distributed days earlier. Each employee had received an assortment of snacks (bags of chips, a can of pringles, a couple boxes of chocolate pastries, a pack of candies, a roll of mentos, cans of juice & softdrinks, and bottles of mineral water) in a bag (shoulder bag for girls, gym bag for boys) the same color as our floral outfits. Mine were blue because I belonged to the Kahoolawe or the blue team. After a game, we dozed off for the rest of the ride.
A couple of hours later we are in Subic. We alight from the bus and get onto the ferry which will bring us across the sea to Grande Island Resort. It takes a few minutes, and once we dock, the resort employees greet us by slipping shell garlands around our necks. Then we take our snacks (cocktail sandwiches with juice/iced tea) and bring them to the function room for a business talk.
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| Inside the ferry |
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| On the port |
After the business meeting we proceed to the inland pool area for lunch. All teams come together to strategize. They assign me and Janis to be part of the scavenger hunt. Our head scavenger, Bryan, tasks us to look for candy coins. Where on earth do we find those? We tire ourselves walking from the souvenir shop up to the rickety steps to the employees’ cafeteria but find none. A couple of our teammates are just as unlucky in locating a 1985 50-cent coin dropped into the inland pool. Thank goodness somebody else manages to scrounge for some real starfish, though, which was worth 300 points. It was my first time to see and touch a for real starfish, and I watched them (there were two) shrivel up and die. Poor starfishes.
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| Inside pool |
Meanwhile, our other teammates prepare a cheer and compete with the cheerers from the other teams. After their performance, 5 males from each team partcipate in the amazing race. We are given a few hours’ rest after that, and head to our assigned bedrooms to arrange our stuff, gawk at our rooms and the view, and to take pictures. Diana’s backpack has not made it to our room, but she is not (yet) worried.
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| Sunset in Subic |
We get a bit of shut-eye before convening with our teammates to prepare for our evening presentation. I get tasked to write the script (my specialty!). The others make props and practice as the Incredibles. Each team had been assigned to be a particular family, and we picked the superhero family.
It is then time for dinner, and we are once again back near the indoor pool. It is barbeque night, and we eat our buffet dinner while being serenaded by a live band. After polishing off our plates, it is time for team presentations. Each team exerted a lot of effort in coming up with the painted and handcrafted props and in trying to synchronize the actors’ movements with the voice-overs. In the end, the yellow team emerged as best presentors.
After some cocktails, we head back to our cottage. Diana’s bag is still missing, and her predicament has been announced several times during the program, earning her the reputation of “Dina” — di na naligo.
We batchmates are roomed next to each other, so we hang out in one of our porches and had a heart-to-heart talk about all sorts of things under the sun, from love lives to first impressions of each other. We burrow into our beds at 3am, saying we’d watch the sunrise together in the morning.
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| On the way back to the cottage, the boys cozy up with a deer |
Only Joan, our baby, actually makes it for our date with the sun and takes some great photos.
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| Sunrise in Subic |
The rest of us crawl out of bed 3 hours later. We eat breakfast and take our complimentary banana boat ride. Only five of us push through with it.
Now, a banana boat is like a huge lifesaver that looks like a banana. It can seat five people. What you do is get on top, straddle the huge fruit and hold on to a strap in front of your seat. The banana is roped to a speed boat, and once all passengers are seated and holding on to the straps, the driver cranks up the speed boat and drives off into ocean, the banana in tow, its passengers holding on for dear life, screaming.
Part of the excitement is when the banana flips and spills its passengers into the ocean. The passengers, of course, are all strapped into life vests, so nobody drowns. They all just bob around in the ocean and try to get the banana back upright and ride it all over again.
Our banana did not flip, though. Still, it was the best ocean adventure I’ve ever had! Back near the shore, we jump off the banana and swim in the sea. After a year, I finally get to swim in the sea again! Wow!
Near noon, we pack up our stuff and have lunch, once again, near the indoor pool area. They announce the winners – congratulations to the purple team! We place fourth. But then again, purple was always my fave. Hehe.
We head for the docks, our things in tow. Diana has finally found her backpack. We go crazy trying to take stolen pics of this really cute officemate. Once again we ride the ferry.
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| My batchmates |
On the bus, Joan is my seatmate this time. We get back to Makati in twice the time it took us to get to Subic. Damn traffic. And guess what? It’s raining! Still, that is a minor pet peeve compared with everything that just happened!