It is finally the weekend and I can sigh with relief of having some time of my own. The hotel room is nice as can be seen above, the only difference is I have 2 super single beds and not the double bed. I like the super single beds anyway, as I got used to them last year. They are nice enough for a person plus 4 pillows or 2/3 persons with less pillows. Teehee. The good thing being back in the hotel is I get to continue watching Astro. And the better thing is the Astro here includes CNBC, Star Movies (YESSSSS!) and NHK. And some others. Yay. More TV, but I am in no way a TV addict.

Tuesday and Wednesday were just more of the same, training with meals and lots of networking and making friends from around the world. Went to Luna Bar again on Wednesday. It was pretty cool and GAHarry bought drinks for everyone a few times. He is from Taiwan and should be very rich because it turns out that even in Taiwan he bought drinks at a karaoke session for more than 70 people ! Amazing. It was a perfect ending to two days worth of boring mindless sessions of how important teamwork and leadership are important to your career. I already know it and I have always hated these self-help workshops. But I suppose it might help some people. I found it useless anyway.

On Thursday we went to Genting, but not up to the casino. Instead we were somewhere in the middle, at Awana where I remember riding horses about 12 years ago at least. Anyway, it was a dead boring place in the middle of lots of trees. We had to do a lot more activities including dancing, singing and playing with Lego to learn how to communicate. Urgh. After a very long day, including those pushing exercises meant to build trust, it ended at 10 pm. At this time, we thought we could go up to the casino. But the bus took forever to arrive and most people got tired of waiting and instead just hung around the bar. I talked to some GAs from Malaysia and then spent the rest of the time with the GAs from Hong Kong. More fun. Anyway. After rounds of talking and drinks and then lots of pool, we went upstairs where they talked some more about life and work and more serious stuff. And I realised some things about HK guys. It seems like so many things are like business transactions. Even having girlfriends. Apparently, they like to have a girlfriend because it makes them happy (and for the sex) but then they always complain about not having enough money, time with friends, or that the girlfriend is very irritating. I wonder that if the relationship was so stressful, then why carry on ? Because they do not see any future with these girls as well. So GAPaula from UK and myself were a bit amused at this revelation but I guess this is just the culture. Talking about work and other banks was quite interesting as well as talking about the other people around us. That was fun because there were 150 people around, so plenty of material to gossip and chat about. I guess that was why we slept at 3 am.

Big mistake cause we had early breakfast at 8 and then a lot of strenuous exercise. It included searching for materials to build a stretcher and then carrying the heaviest person. Tiring. So we had 30 minutes to shower, before getting back to the bus, and then back to the hotel. I took a nap before we had to go back to finish the programme off with more lectures/speeches. Luckily there was time for another nap before we had to dress up for the Cultural Night dinner. It was pretty amazing. Korean dresses are amazingly nice and floaty. Very beautiful. Especially GAJanie. The other countries were also interesting with people dressing up in traditional costumes or as warriors/aboriginals/the statue of liberty/olde English lawyers. But my favourite costumes were the ones from Hong Kong. The 15 of them dressed up in boxes made to look like mahjong tiles !! So cute and funny ! They were the 13 unique wonders plus a flower. So amazingly cute. I got the 'Fatt Choi' tile off them and henceforth it shall be my lucky talisman. No surprises they won the best costume award. A wonderful end to a nice week.

Now it remains to see what the next 5 weeks are like. It could be stressful, as we will be tested and ranked. However, I immensely look forward to more times with the GAs from other countries, especially Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. The Hong Kong GAs are an amazing bunch, so saying hi to them, both GAGordons (both fun and funny), GAVincent (who is amazingly like NickBear), GATracy (the first one I met), GAHilda (the sophisticated one), GACindy (the cute one), GAKenneth (very nice but reminds me of William Hung in a nice way), GAJordi (the cool one), GAIris (the outspoken one), GABishi (the funny one), GAWilman (who reminds me a lot of PatBear), GAEdward (the serious one), GAAlan, GAChris and GABrenda (the ones I need to talk to more).

I love Hong Kong. Yes that includes RoxBear, SoBear and FredBear. Oh, and the ones I have met - JeffBear, NickBear, BeccaBear, FionaBear, FredBear's entire extended family and KenBear. Oh, and who can forget the lovely mahjong tiles..........

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