Jemma (aka Jimjim) and I decided to have a picnic on the first of September in Botanic Gardens to celebrate our birthdays together. We invited some of our office friends and headed over there loaded down with store-bought food and mats.
Picnic dinner: pizza, chicken, Old Chang Kee nibbles, chips and dip, chocolate mice and eclairs, drinks
Birthday girls Jimjim and Deedee
We wanted to have games, so Nantoy and Joc volunteered to organize that part of the event for us and they came up with a competition that they called “The Hungry Games” after the famous Hunger Games, obviously.
They put so much effort into organizing it, coming up with games and buying props and preparing them and setting up at the event location. They even stayed up late the night before the event to prepare everything. What dedication!
The first thing Nantoy instructed us to do using his plastic megaphone was counts off and then had the odds go to me and the evens go to Jim. There were five players in each team and he told us we were the blue team (my team) and pink team (Jim’s) and gave us instructions for the obstacle course.
After we were done with that, we were given our team handkerchiefs and asked to come up with group names that should start with our color followed by an adjective followed by an animal.
We chose Blue Sexy Bears while the other group went with Pink Sexy Panthers.
How funny is it that we both chose the same adjective? Haha!
Then we had to design a flag and fly a kite and come up with a team cheer.
Blue Sexy Bears
For the team cheer, Nantoy asked a jogging stranger to be an objective judge. His name was Andy.
Pink Sexy Panthers with the jogging judge
After watching the pink team’s performance, we were pretty sure we had lost, so when the winner was announced, we couldn’t believe that it was us. I even said, “We won? Why?” and wanted to protest. LOL.
In the end, the PSP became the overall champions and they got some classy medals. But surprise surprise, the leader of the BSB (aka moi) also got one! Yippee!
The classy medal
BSB & PSP with the Hungry Games organisers
When the sun left the sky, we decided to move from the perfectly shaded spot which was earlier ideal to shield us from the sun’s merciless rays but was now too dark to be able to see anything.
We migrated to a patch of grass near a street light. Just as we were setting up, we saw Maya. Turns out her cellphone’s battery had died and she couldn’t find us in the huge park and had just given up and was about to go home. A good thing we decided to move, then!
We stayed till about 10pm eating and chatting and laughing about everything under the sun – or should I say moon, because the sun was nowhere to be found by then. Actually, we even talked about the moon, which looked really huge that night.
Thanks to another random stranger for taking this awesome group photo!
Outside the Botanic Gardens gate. “For the nth time it’s botanic, not botanical!”
It turned out to be a very enjoyable event. I would like to thank the organizers Nantoy and Joc most especially, for making it so. May the odds be ever in our favor that it becomes an annual thing.
P.S. The week after the event, I was pleasantly surprised when I came in to work one morning and saw this frame on my desk! It was from Nantoy. I was so touched that I wanted to cry but I had mascara on, so I got ahold of myself. LOL.
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