Our Japanese AD Ichiro was being sent back to Japan after two years of stay in GBS, so they organized a surprise despedida party for him last night.
All the people he interacted with were invited and his GBS best friend Sunil brought him there. The event was held in Ardi’s and each group of people was supposed to come up with some sort of gift or presentation for him.
After a buffet dinner, everyone came up to do their thing. Everyone else actually just presented gifts or gave goodbye speeches.
Finally it was AP’s turn to present and Rome and I went infront and did the “Ichiro, Game Ka Na Ba?” thing which I conceptualized and completed with other assigned people’s help. Kinacareer ko na talaga ang paghohost.
He was able to answer a couple of questions but missed three, so he had to do three consequences.
The first was to eat balut. He actually finished it all.
We then asked him to dance the famous papaya dance with Thom, Cerhan and Sunil.
Finally, we told him he had to hug 5 women at once – at this point he suddenly hugged me and I said, “No, not me! But thank you, I am very happy.” Then we said we were raffling off the hugs to five women whose names he had to pick. When all five were picked, they got into a group hug and had a picture.
Then AP sang the Japanese Voltes 5 closing theme song for him. Sunil then had a drinking game for Ichiro and had him very drunk, after which he gave a speech.
Then Rome, Thom and I bid goodbye and Rome and I each gave Ichiro a hug and kiss. I sure am gonna miss him. He was one of the fun bosses in GBS who commanded attention whenever he spoke. The other one is his best friend Sunil who is being sent to Singapore. Oh well. I think GBS will survive. Through all our changes, we always do.