So anyway, I made it to the hotel at 3.30 pm, in plenty of time. Oh the wonderful feeling of asking the doorman get your door and all your luggage and then bringing it up to your room. "1814, yes that is where I am..." And you get all the subservient little valets and jockeys and doormen and bellmen, it is really the life I like. I do think that I could get used to living in hotels my whole life !!

We had to register by 4.45 after which we had some introductions all around, and to our 7 other table mates. So I had 2 Indians, and one each from Japan, Taiwan, China, UK, and Bangladesh. All very nice except one if the Indians is a really aggresive and forceful dominant personality but the good thing is the rest of the table is usually in agreement so he does not get his way a lot. Very good. We had some slide presentations by senior management and then we were off to the bar where we had free drinks and finger food (absolutely the best food to mingle with). So we drank and ate and chatted and said our how-do-you-do's with the needed where/who/what/when/how questions. Very nice. Later for dinner, I and a few other Malaysians and most of the graduates from Hong Kong (I seems to have a special bond with them now, especially when they find out I speak Canto, thanks very much FredBear and RoxBear for always talking to me in Canto !!). We went to Sungeiwang since it was slightly drizzling and thus Jalan Alor was out of the question. We had some Malaysian/Viet/Thai food.Very good. As I was just exhausted, I was in bed by midnight. Could not even muster the strength to watch football (bloody Martins in IzyBear's team......) But there is just the sense of sleepiness in hotels. I could sleep all day ! It was so hard to get up the next morning. But I had to, and did, and went to get some breakfast down before all the teambuilding started. I personally think it is all bollocks and boring but I suppose some people actually enjoy these things and CAN learn from it, though I find it has very small effets on me.

Teambuilding the whole day with 4 meals in between can actually be quite tiring. I napped before dinner, and walked into the lobby. Though I meant to go for a pool party at another hotel, I ended up joining a nice small diverse group of 6 for dinner at a nearby Viet restaurant. Yum. It was just the right size for a dinner party and we were able to talk very much. I like this sort of situations. I think I do love dinner parties..........with diverse cultures and nationalities to talk about. Do you suppose that there could be a future for me in internationalism ? I suppose not.

After dinner, we set out for the pool party and stayed for about an hour. We met some new people as these were the ones from Consumer Banking and Support Functions. Talk, talk yakkity yak. I suppose if my whole career was to be based on chatting people up and making friends it would be quite nice. And interesting. Went to bed later after some TV.

It is Tues morning now, and I only managed to squeeze in 2 cups of juice. Now I am off to training again !!

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