south-east asia → philippines → rizal → san mateo
teambuilding last friday, may 9. one thing i like in this company is that we always have company activities on a friday so we still have wholly 2-day regular weekend break. we arranged for car pool (i’m going to ride with a collegue from paranaque, anna) and i had to be in mc donald’s atc at 6.00am. a bit too early, and i don’t want to be late, i drove to alabang and just parked nearby the church at the backsides of atc (because it’s free here and i will be gone most of the day) and then walked briskly towards mc donalds. ‘got there 3 or 4 minutes past 6, and wilson and jeremy (same name) are having breakfast already. as you might already know, i don’t eat breakfast. accurately, early breakfast. i could take a brunch or a rice breakfast at around 10 or 11, but not that typical pancake-cereal-tapsilog-and-all-kinds-of-other-silog breakfast at 6 or 7am. after a while, anna and jacq came, and we’re on the road to expressway right away. first stop would be shell station ayala to get lanie, which was a quick one because there was no traffic.
the crew complete now, we headed further north and we’re actually familiar with the route up until passing by edsa shine and turning right in the KKK/Bonifacio monument (not sure how you call this). after that, we relied on our maps, which are sadly, too hard/blurred to read! i spotted a landmark in the map called ‘cosmopolitan market’ but in reality it’s ‘conception market’. going a bit in circles and started to get lost, all of a sudden, lo and behold! we saw two vehicles approaching (a car and a van) and inside it we spotted our officemates! happy accidents! saved us getting lost and late! so, we just followed them ala convoy and made it to the facility a few minutes before 8am. the place is called eartHaven, more info from their site. it’s situated along sides of sierra madre mountain range and they promote environmental awareness and back-to-basic way of life. as oppose that we were on an elevated land and there would be lots of cellphone signals, all our phones were dead. registration, and then we had some trivia games first ranging from scientific name of things like cats and dogs and rice grain to highest of everything like highest paid actor, highest tower, and tallest tree. i actually know the scientific name for rice (oryza sativa), but after saying so he asked me to spell! whatta. one of my colleagues knows that the tallest tree has to be the sequoia, but our guide says no. the correct answer is california redwood, and just double checking the fact now. sequoia = california redwood haha! he added that there were some 200+ species of redwood and he knows all of them. obviously bluffing, we asked him to recite them all, but he reasoned that we would run out of time. we then bargained for him to recite even half of it, but he still declined. i guess some of his trivia, he ain’t sure himself. just like when one of my officemate says that the highest paid female actor is julia roberts (i think it’s witherspoon, i just remember i heard about her high wage before), our guide says it’s wrong, and when we asked who the correct answer is, he thinks for awhile and then says "ah tama ka! si julia roberts nga" (yes, you’re right. it’s julia roberts). well we didn’t really blatantly made fun of him (just within ourselves, hehe) but my take on this is that, if it’s your job to share facts, then you have to diligently make sure they’re not fictitious. 
enough of that. we had breakfast. carrot cupcakes (yes they were that small), and after grouping into 2, we had indoor games first like inventing group name (ours "pangkat-i", the other group was "team ba?" with a pail logo), group cheer and group logo, and building the highest and sturdiest tower using plastic straws and limited tape (which we won btw). we then proceeded outdoors for the spider web game. i don’t have a picture of this but it’s like spider web made of ropes and each individual from a team has to cross from one side of the web to the other by getting into web (rope) holes without any body contact. each hole is to be used only once and since we were 11 in the team, we had to use upper holes and had to carry some of our members. if there’s any body contact, we have to start from the beginning. i think we had 4 or 5 takes on this, and on our last and successful try, i was the last person to pass through so i was very careful not to hit the ropes. again we won this game. 
after that, the walk-in-unison game, which we easily won again (ahem. hehe) due to faster count pacing (1-2-right.. 1-2-left and so on, instead of 1-2-3-right.. 1-2-3-left) and using all members wearing closed shoes. headed back to our main base for lunch which we had using barehands (which was fun and natural for most filipinos) and a quick rest. then the ultimate challenge which is a small obstacle that includes crossing the river through bridge made of ropes, crossing back on slippery logs with pendulum bags going back and forth trying to hit you, and then finally crossing the length of the river by tightly clinging on a hanging rope and swinging ala-tarzan. there might be lots of us who ended up soaked in the muddy river, but still, it’s an amazing experience. needless to say, we won again this part.
then, we still have some spare time for swimming (this time in real pool), and since it’s back-to-basic, we have to wash ourselves from drums of water using pails and water dipper (aka tabo).
back to our base again for snacks, awarding of winners (hakot award because we won every challenge), and finale. some group pictures and then back to manila. before heading home, we dropped by one of our colleagues home (in ayala alabang, yes the village!) it’s my first time to get in this subdivision (which is a very notorious neighborhood of the elites) so we were kidding about the air smelling different here, or the mosquitoes having right attitude in this part that we could leave the doors open.
before we knew it, it was already past 9pm. then everyone called it a day. i walked to the parking lot, my arms starting to sore now (because of rigorous physical activities) and drove home.
of course, pics -> here
