Malacca Team Building Trip 2018

Because you noobs failed to correctly guess that this post would be about my Malacca trip, the punishment is an annoying number of selfies from me in this post, to be enjoyed and admired by all.

The day started off way too early at 7am on a rainy SATURDAY which i'm pretty sure is against MoM laws. We met up at Braddell MRT, disgusted at having to see each other's faces throughout weekend and reluctantly boarded a private van that brought us to Malacca.

Felt as if we magically teleported to the hotel as everyone knocked out on the van instantly. For our 3d2n trip, we stayed at The Bliss which rents out rooms or entire houses at reasonable prices. 

House very big but this place abit ulu and dark at night. God bless any burglar who dares to break into our house though, with my thirsty colleagues prowling around.

Instead of sharing a room like the others, i got an entire room to myself because the aforementioned thirsty tigresses were planning to take turns having their way with me at night. Not gonna show you upstairs because you should never intrude a predator's natural habitat but overall the property was huge, clean and value for $.

Speaking of thirsty, our boss treated us to a round of liang teh after we settled down and headed out. As long as not treat us eat cuttlefish 我什么都吃.

I have not tasted anything more bitter than this cup of satan's piss but because boss treat one must 大声叫好.

Had a few minutes to kill before our lunch reservation, so we grabbed some light snacks from a road side ngoh hiang stall.

Not bad, mostly fishcakes and tau kee splashed with sauces but those cucumbers deserve a special fuck you.

First meal of the trip at a nonya restoran recommended by my Malaccan colleague. Having a local organise the retreat made everything easy peasy foreskin cheesy.

I thought these people were just cosplaying for fun but turns out they are real Peranakan families fully decked out in traditional costumes for a Saturday lunch. Sibei effort.

Is it in front of boss all must gei siao check emails on phone?

Finally food's served! First up is a mountain of chillies stir fried with pork. Like a namja, i didn't let its appearance intimidate me but my anus hated me for it that night.

In consideration of my bonus, i gave up taking individual pictures of the dishes and let the hungry ghosts attack the table. Makan with them confirm got 大鱼大肉 very shiok.

Malaysia otah boleh! Will gladly take these thick, chunky otahs over our pathetic, flat, thin slices of fish paste any day.

When you work with finance folks, you begin to realise that these people stop relying on oxygen and survive instead on coffee. Thanks to the convenience, safety and comfort of Grab™, we quickly reached the cafe to get their caffeine fix before they started foaming at their mouths.

Did someone say foam? And how the hell am i supposed to drink something this cute??

The baristas here are definitely sadists, creating such adorable beverages to force you into destroying them with a sip.

The next activity was a big test of masculinity for the 3 poor guys. I was worried that my sexual orientation would change by the end of the baking class.

Look at all the sexually confused male faces in the baking studio, contemplating if we still preferred a wrinkly, acidic vagina to a strong, beautiful stalk of penis.

We felt so out of place doing this kind of chio bu stuff until boss said cookie not nice will affect KPI. So don't be fooled by our kawaii aprons, some serious baking is going to go down.

It was fun getting our hands dirty until halfway in when i remembered i hadn't washed my hands..

We got to choose the type of cookie we wanted to bake and the ingredients were nicely laid out in front of us so that even an idiot couldn't screw it up.

"Beat the eggs as if you are beating your boss" - ex-Grab employee, 2018.

Some of them couldn't contain their excitement and camped in front of the oven anxiously waiting to see the results. Pfft not me, my cookies were going to be fabulous so i calmly sipped my tea while waiting for my cookies to be ready to dazzle the world.

Ok just to clarify, having my cookies stick together and looking like deformed buttocks was definitely done on purpose. Of course i knew that the cookies would compress in the oven so i did not get greedy and put too much batter on each one. Truthfully though they tasted absolutely below average but guess who now has a necklace made out of cookies? And just like that, my dreams of opening a cookie shop called "Famous Anus" were dashed.

In case baking cookies failed to make me gay, a musical followed directly afterwards.

Exhibiting the fascinating history and diverse culture of Melaka, i was all ready and pumped to take a nap throughout the show.

The 360 degrees rotating theatre was pretty cool. You can watch the smooth transition of scenes instead of actors scurrying around.

Wew they even built some waterfalls so we can see some wet t shirts. Good fan service.

We all know what red lanterns mean in SG ;). Plus points for the moments of audience interaction such as giving out candy to ensure we stayed awake.

With the conclusion of the show, you get to take photos with the performers in their costumes. I'm still looking for the wet t shirt performers.

Where else but Ban Lee Siang for their famous satay celup for dinner? Because the idea of reusing the same satay sauce from the last customer sounds so appealing.

But apparently 人就是那么犯贱. The restoran was packed like sardines as we aimed for a table of chio bus to finish eating so at least we get to eat their saliva.

At RM 1.10 per stick, it's easy to understand why so many people flock here. 40 cents for a stick of see hum or prawn. With $10 sgd i can eat enough cockles to satisfy my newly acquired gay cravings.

Me playing it safe and taking only what i can eat while my enthusiastic colleagues spammed 5-10 skewers of everything and expect others to eat their mistakes. 你们很不乖哦.

At first, we were relatively civilized. Waiting for a round of skewers to be properly cooked before beginning the next round.

But then all hell broke loose and our satay sauce cauldron soon turned into a porcupine. Raw and cooked skewers being dipped simultaneously at the same time, what could go wrong?

Not the biggest fan of satay sauce but there's something fun about unearthing different treasures buried inside.

Pulling out this sibei extra angrybird fishcake was not part of the fun though. Take out already paiseh put back inside so bo bian must swallow this piece of shit.

In the end we ate so much that the counting of the sticks took 10 mins. Also, half of our group got upset stomachs that night lol.

With lok lok filled tummies, we went to the ever-happening Jonker Walk for our free and easy.

A long ass stretch of food and shopping stalls not unlike your ordinary pasar malam but there was nothing too exciting to buy.

As if i didn't eat enough skewers that night, i got myself some cheesy egg mayo thing on a stick. It's been a year but i still remember how disappointing this tasted as if it were yesterday.

Pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face here.

Apart from the statue of Ck, this 夜市 was boring as heck. 

Since the shopping here was a travesty, we had a drink together at Geographer Cafe instead.

Smlj why my mojito got tumour growing out? Was extra wary the whole night in case someone wanted to spike my drink. Sometimes we boys have to protect our little pee pee from being violated.

We played some basic drinking games like Indian poker where lots of cheating and bad acting was going on. But most importantly everyone unwinded before the hell that awaited us the next day.

- Day 2 -

All decked out in our couple t shirts and ready for the treasure hunt. Or at least we thought we were.

But first, breakfast at Pin Pin Hiong.

I am sexually attracted to old, traditional kopitiams like this. Now if only they served black soy sauce wanton mee my balls would explode with joy.

My heart shattered when they didn't, although we did get a nice plate of wok hei infused hor fun. Delicious with the slices of pork, liver and intestines.

Orh lua with microscopic oysters but it's probably best to keep their hormone levels down.

A group photo before the battle lines are drawn and the backstabbing begins.

My team discussing our strategy while i distract the other teams with selfies. Talented on the bed, genius in the head.

The questions involve plenty of walking, finding landmarks and taking selfies with them. Sounds easy enough until we found out that some of the descriptions are so vague that they could be anything.

Anyway, our first challenge was finishing 2 bowls of chendol between our 3 person team.

Because we aren't stupid, we only bought 1 bowl and "borrowed" another from other customers to take the photos. Win treasure hunt 就是需要那么贱.

With a combined IQ of 3000, the other teams never stood a chance against Team Popz.

Quickly demolishing our bowl of chendol, we borrowed another customer's empty bowl to take the completed picture. The judges were none the wiser.

Apparently there was another Ck statue and we got this one wrong.. It was our own fault to assume that a magnificent specimen such as Ck would only have 1 statue dedicated to him.

Had to find and locate the same landmark as our keychain, and we got the bar that we drank at the previous night. Even god is helping us to win this.

Following that was finding and taking selfies with 4 different hotels.

Never thought that bringing 2 women around hotel hopping would be such an underwhelming experience.

But it was a hot, hot day and we were sweating profusely from all this running around.

My hand and face was also starting to cramp from taking all these selfies.

A much needed intermission from wandering around to attend a clay sculpting class where points were awarded for completion.

Listening intently to the pro so we wouldn't fuck up our pottery.

It was difficult to get the right balance of force, probably because i'm so darn strong. The cb clay keeps being thinner on 1 side than the other but it was fun to let our imagination run wild and attempt to create what was on our...

...minds.. Hello sis what are you making??

Since there were only 2 pottery wheels, our other teammate baked some bread instead.

Tadah! My 2 expertly made errr thingys. The senpai doesn't touch it up for you so that you have to live with your mistakes for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, one of them got destroyed during the heating process while the other is now serving as my personalised coin holder.

A truce was called as everyone gathered together for lunch at He Ji to eat some balls.

My first time having chicken rice balls and i enjoyed the fusion of kuay png x sushi tho these little fuckers were compact and filling af. Would have been better if the chicken was as tender as my ass cheeks but mai hiam buay pai lah.

The organisers might be low key trying to kill us. We had to eat 15 satays right after lunch just to earn some imaginary points to win some useless competition.

This one no chance to cheat because there were barely any other customers around so we cannot kio their sticks.

At least the challenge was made easier by the yummy satays cooked on MOTHERFUCKING CHARCOAL but finish already full until cannot walk.

Melaka was a port that was owned by the Portuguese, Dutch and subsequently the British. I thought these were the actual fort defenses but turns out they were nothing but reconstructed lies. Cannon lie! Hate Cannon!

Unwillingly boarded a river cruise in search of more points. Why unwilling you ask?

The water is a terrifying greenish brown and is riddled with a pungent sai bee. They really shouldn't call it a river but i guess the "Malacca Drain Cruise" wouldn't attract as many tourists.

Shameless selfie with strangers on the cruise because we are sluts for points.

Eyes were busy looking around because the quiz asked us to describe something "breathtaking" from the cruise.

We eventually settled on this Uber sign because as Grab employees this was a reminder of our breathtaking victory over them. Controversially, we got 0 marks for this.

At least we got some points from getting all the names of the bridges so the cruise wasn't a total wash. Understandably, no selfies were needed for this because nobody wants to fall into the toxic sludge river while trying to take a photo.

Smiling here but we were constantly getting splattered by that lapsup water sibei gao wei.

The next question was something about Pink Panther's house and this shit was the most famous landmark in Melaka so we figured it HAD to be this. It wasn't.

Since the question could not be any more vague, we ended up taking selfies with every single pink structure and sent all of them to the organisers.

You can see the smiles slowly disappearing from our faces as each photo was turned down.

Not even caring if my team's faces are in the shot at this point.

In the end, we never found the correct pink house. Mark my words, one day i will return to Malacca, find that pink house and burn it down. Fuck you pink panther.

We took a deserved coconut ice cream break which isn't a Malacca specialty but somehow got awarded points for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Back under the torture of the scorching afternoon sun. We were all dying in the sweltering heat trying to find stupid murals. 

Please, we give u money.. just let this be over already..

The most memorable part was trying to find a mosque with chinese influence. Determining that this was the only mosque around the area, we were sure this was it but had no luck finding any chinese influence on it.

45 mins of pacing around back and forth, scouring every corner of the mosque, contemplating what we were doing with our lives.. and then we finally saw it. Can you spot it?

God damn it that tiny 喜喜 camouflaged in white. 你们还是不是人?!?!

The last straw was a question asking for Ip Man's house and surely it had to be this building.WRONG. Apparently the correct place was on the opposite side of the building and this side was actually a mausoleum housing 骨灰. What. The. Fuck. 

And with that, time was up and the treasure hunt finally concluded. Afraid of us collapsing due to dehydration and also assaulting them for the stupid questions, the organizers prepared liang teh for us. Surprisingly, our team won by an inch with that 喜喜 find. Easiest treasure hunt of my life.

After freshening up ourselves, we crawled to the dinner place in dire need of sustenance. Dinner promised to be a real crabby affair.

Cheesy prawn bee hoon trend is apparently a thing in Melaka and although it looks like a warm steaming pile of vomit, it was delicious.

Oooohhhh look at those meaty crab claws in that sexy salted egg sauce. 

Chilli crab without 蛋花 is like having sex without orgasms. I don't need this kind of negativity in my life.

As usual, every meal is mountain pearl sea taste. Aunty Fatso is a good tze char place with fat, fresh crabs but not sure if it is wallet friendly since we didn't have to pay.

It's 20198 and there are still people taking panorama shots smh.

The prize for our win was a free massage session which wasn't of the filthy variety much to our disappointment. But still, a full body massage was definitely welcome after all that leg exercise.

Okay on second thought.. thank god thank allah thank guan yin ma this is wasn't a lapsup massage.

With our bones crushed into powder by the powerful massage ladies, we capped off the day by lingering over a cup of bubble tea at the Alley.

This was last year when the brown sugar boba hype was at its peak. Now, the recently opened Alley branch in Tampines One is as dead as my love life.

Sneakily took a pic of the beautiful man who provides me with my rice bowl. I hope someday he thinks of me as more than an employee..*blush*

Lastly, a company retreat would not be complete without trying to make each other bankrupt. A treacherous game of in between made me lose RM 100 in 3 turns from 2 'tiangs' because someone never shuffle the cards properly after playing dai di. Oh well, at least it was fun and i can just think of it as paying for that massage earlier.

- Day 3 -

It has been way too long since i last tasted authentic Malaysian dark soy sauce wanton mee. Giving in to my cravings, i woke up early in the morning to go on a solo wanton mee adventure. With the power of Google, i managed to find some of Melaka's best wanton mee places.

Aaaand it's closed. No worries, i had expected this due to my food curse and my brilliant mind already planned for a backup.

Aaaaand it's closed too. How does this shit keep happening to me??

To add insult to injury, i had to walk across the 喜喜 mosque again on an empty, wanton mee-less stomach.

Defeated, i stumbled into a random retro shop looking for anything to soothe my sadness.

At least i managed to have my dark soy sauce noodles, although comparing this fishball noodle with wanton mee is like comparing me to Song Joong Ki.

Following our check out, the final activity was having lunch before heading back to SG. We ate at 北栈, which was fortunately open unlike the wtm stalls. 

Did not expect it to be this deserted during lunch hour, even if it was a Monday afternoon.

Place so empty that their tofu started growing mold. Just kidding, the seaweed infused deep fried tofu was decent.

Fresh fish cooked Teochew style. Not a fan of steamed fishes because i prefer choking on dicks to fish bones.

Actually nubbad, but do you know what would have been better? A nice plate of wanton mee drenched in dark soy sauce hunghhh.

Because we still had some remaining budget and the goal was to spend every last cent, we ordered a bowl of bird's nest each just for the lulz. Sorry not sorry it's in our calculative finance blood.

Full stomachs, bonded relationships, and ready to get back at each other's throats once we step back into office.

They actually turned the minivan into a gambling den on route to SG. My dear colleagues, help is available. Call 1800-6-668-668 to manage your gambling addiction.

But my boss demonstrated his work ethic and multi tasking skills, replying to emails and winning money all the way back to SG. I bet he has a huge dick too. 我的偶像. Special thanks to the 2 organisers Joey and SH for their hard work and meticulous planning for our retreat! It was fun and we were well taken care of so i will begrudgingly forgive you for that fucking pink panther house question.

- End of Malacca Team Building Trip 2018 -