Conversant Company Update @ Bintan, Day 1

On 7 Apr, our dear HR -- Zahara, sent us an email, title "Offsite trip for Company Update". And all of us start to scratch our head and asked what is that all about? Company update at offsite - Bintan? Was it a company trip or what? and the dates are on friday and saturday - 25-26 Apr 2008, which means you gonna "burn" one saturday for the company. And after 2 days of consideration and getting my "out-station passport" from my 6-months pregnant wife, I'm going!

So on early morning of 25 April, I woke up very early, and my wife explicitly asked me not to disturb her early in the morning the night before. Well, I manage to woke up and brush up and took the luggage that my wife prepared for me and Go!


I'm probably one of those few, or the only one that took a bus to the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. And I reached there on the exact time -- 8:05am. Which I thought I'm the last one, but to my surprise, there are still four, our Ong sisters, Dan and the father-to-be -- Jimmy! Anyway, they all manage to get on the board eventually, and our journey starts!

Zahara and Janet, from the HR and Admin office!

Along the way, or rather when it is about to reach the Terminal at Bintan, you can start to see some scenery:

The ferry took 1 hour to fetch us there and finally we've reached:


And the first thing that we need to do is of course, custom clearance. It took us about 10mins maybe, I didn't really time it, but in the mist of chatting, time flies and I was told that many Singaporeans came here for weekend getaways and the crowd on the day is consider as "not that bad".


This is Aor, our new blood on Marketing, from Thailand. She flew over to our singapore office a week ago prior to the trip, to have packed sessions of discussions.

As soon as we cleared the custom, there is significant welcome board for us, and the slogan reads "The ability to connect".

The Conversant Family, well blend of nationality, gender, heights and ... weights?


There is a bus transfer service from the Terminal to the resort, and all of us are excited it seems.

Jimmy: "What are you doing?"


Dan : "Heheh... I got the best seat on the bus"

Joyce Foo: "Choong Seng, look, got mountain!" (haha... )

As soon as we've reached the resort, we were greet with the traditional local dancing performance, just a short welcoming performance though. I thought we are so specially treated, only later figured out that this applies to all resort visitors. Anyway, the lemon grass tea welcome drink came just in time to cease our thirsts in the hot weather.

We were then being issued a room card for each of us.

And this is how the rooms are, twin bed, with safe and baygon!

After got ready for the next activity -- Paint Ball, I took my camera, walk around and took some shots.
yaya... I wish I could have a tele-zoom lens or wide-angle lens for this!