Hotel's Staff Outing

108 day in Shanghai (16/12/07)

The initial plan was to sleep for 2 hours before waking up at 5.30am to get ready for the hotel staff outing. But in the end, both Kim and I got up late and we got to rush out of the house.

Walked a few levels down the stairs and I realized that I should bring my employee card so I went back home, got Jie Ying’s house key, went into her house and get my card.

By that time, we thought that we were super later already and started running down the stairs.

The moment we reached the street, it was empty. Not a single car or taxi. The only vehicles we saw were a few buses passing by. Walked out to the main road at a very fast pace and the moment we saw a cab, we ran all the way to catch it.

It was like some morning exercise. Got quite hot when we reached the hotel when it was supposed to be freezing cold.

Got to find the coach we are boarding where they paste a ‘name list’ on the door. Went coach to coach to find our names and we finally found ours; Bus 1

Board the coach and waited for the rest of the staffs to arrive. While waiting for the other staffs to arrive, I realized that the hotel’s welfare is quite good.

Firstly, the hotel made an effort to come out with this outing for her staffs, and then there was a coffee and tea booth at the entrance for the staffs (it was freezing cold so I think by providing hot coffee and tea a a very good ides)

When all the staffs board the coach, breakfast will be distributed. Everyone will get to have a bun, a hard-boiled egg and yogurt in a plastic bag together with a bottle of water.

Journey started off and it takes us about 1½ hour to reach Ting Lin Yuan, some attraction in Suzhou.

Slept all the way, reached there and it was toilet break then team-building activity.

We were all told to gather at the field and put our bags at one corner. Thought that it was totally stupid to be involved in the activity so we decided to just carry our bag and not be involved.

But in the end, in order to get warm, we decided to just join in the activities. At least there is going to be some jumping and moving around.

Every one of us was distributed with scarf. They have got 4 different groups so each group will have a different color; Grey, blue, red and pink. Ours were dark blue.

And although the scarf was just to differentiate the different groups, I think the quality is quite good. (Another welfare from the hotel)

Played a few activities and it seems like we are back in primary school; rabbit dance (shall not explain), passing the hula hook using your head/body and finishing a race by jumping (jumping to the other end and the last person got to ran back, hit the palm of the next first person of the next row and the race continues)

Had some fun there because it has been ages since I last got involved in all this kind of activity: team building. It’s really like back to school days.

And well, at least we weren’t that cold after the activity.

Having some free time after that, we explored the garden, took some photos and started cam whoring.

Find our way back to the coach and the next stop was lunch.

Lunch was at one of the restaurant by Yu Chen Lake. All of us have got our own private room and both Kim and I were to seat with the reservation people (just nice 10 of us)

Cold dish was there already then came the prawns, some seafood with shell, vegetables, fish, egg, noodles, chicken soup and the most important item; hairy crab =)

That was the first time I tried hairy crab and have got no idea how to eat it. Rainbow, one of our colleague started teaching us how to eat the crab; differentiate between the male and female, the difference between them, how to peel the crab open, which part can or cannot eat, etc.

Started eating the crab and vinegar was the sauce to it. I ate the crab the way I eat it at home; peel the meat out, dip in the sauce, etc but the locals here don’t eat them the way I do.

They will dip the whole crab into the vinegar and suck the meat out. I tried doing that but nothing comes out of the shells.

We took a super long time to finish eating it and when we went out to wash our hands, all the other private rooms are not only empty, the dishes are more or less being cleared away already.
Which means all the other staffs have finished eating and went out like long time ago?!?!

After lunch, boarded the coach and we decided to go back out along the street to see what the locals are selling.

Chickens, crabs, eggs and vegetables are sold in almost every store there. We even saw one of the workers skinning off a chicken. Kim took a video down and I think it is totally disgusting.

Headed back to the hotel and it was another 2 hours sleeping time on the coach. Reached back Shanghai and since it was too cold to walk home, we took a cab home from the lobby.

Reached home at about 4.30pm and I started finding food the moment step into the house coz I wasn’t full at all during lunch.

Watched Prison Break until 11pm before heading off to bed.