Guess who's back!

[Back again. Piggy's back. Tell a friend.]

[Again.]

Annual deadhorse-beating aside, I know I've not updated in a really, REALLY long time, and that I still need to forcefeed the world my two cents on The Persian Prince: The Timely Sands.

Ooo! And Inception! Yay for regular movie-watching! :)

So the title of my post doesn't only refer to my being back to the blogosphere (well, back to be updating a bit more regular that usual hahaha), but also from my KL trip, which I just came back from Friday.

[Ready yourselves for a wall o' text, peeps.]

My department and I were in KL for our Business Development Plan Meeting, which basically details what we'll be doing for the coming financial year. We took Firefly, Thursday morning flight out at 7.05am, which means having to wake up at 5.30am. I had the misfortune of taking like, the slowest cab down to the airport, which caused me to reach said airport at 6.30am, and rush to be checked in, since check-in time is half an hour before take-off.

Upon reaching KL at 8.15/20am, it was a mad rush to the offices, since the meeting was supposed to start at 8.30am, and I say 'mad' because there was a huge, huge jam from Subang to 1Sentral and I really, really, really had to pee.

[And I've always had this phobia about exploding bladders and really horrible agonizing internal-toxic deaths.]

We got there at 9am. Didn't get to pee right away, 'cuz everything started once we walked through the door and put down our bags.

So, despite being called 'Business Development Plan' and hearing from my seniors that it was all about discussing the budget and going through slides and yannoe, really dry stuff, it was a helluva lot of fun! Only about one day was spent on going through the BDP, and the rest was team-building activities and that kind of stuff. First day, we were supposed to go into random food establishments and see how that particular service line is similar to ours. Yay for food assignments! So we went to Meal Station and had breakfast.

Other groups went to Coffee Bean, Le Meridien, McDonald's... ENVY!

Lunch was provided, and was great for both days. Chicken = heaven.

We'd received an email on Wednesday saying that there would be a team event that'll last till 9pm-ish, which I wasn't too excited about, since it would mean that we'll reach our hotel at 10pm, and after the obligatory showering and washing up, sleep at 11pm?

Shudder.

Turns out, we were to go to the badminton semifinals of the Inter-Accounting Firm Games! Which, to me, was infinitely better than what the term 'team event' usually means! Strength for strength, both set of players. The match for the first set of players was really intense; the second, not so much, since the two teams playing weren't really that good. We were up against Deloitte, and we totally won!!!

[Plus, got a PwC t-shirt that day, though it was XXL.]

We stayed in Cititel MidValley, which was pretty awesome. Our room was small, and felt slightly cramped, since they put the two beds pretty close together, but it was clean. (and that's what's most important!). I turned in pretty early that night. Got me some chocolate from Coffee Bean, then went straight back to my room to rest and recuperate and watched 10 Things I Hate About You.

Yes dear reader, you thought correct. There was absolutely nothing else on TV that night.

Second day, meant to sleep in, but I automatically woke up at 5.30am (a-fucking-gain!) and couldn't go back to sleep after. My roomie and I were the first down to breakfast at 7am. Spread was lovely; got roti canai, teriyaki chicken, wedges, franks, the usual egg station... If I were on holiday, I'd have eaten a whole lot more.

Friday was also a lot of fun, but office activities were relatively uneventful, compared to what happened to us after we left office.

We (my three seniors plus moi, not including my boss, whose friend was fetching her to the airport) had booked a taxi from the service in KL Sentral to go to Subang airport, because KL cabs usually charge crazy, but there were absolutely no cabs for the people ahead of us to get on. That was at 6.15pm, with about seven groups of people in front of us.

On hindsight, we would've been much better off hailing a random cab from the sidewalk.

We finally got a cab at 7pm. It was running low on gas, and the driver was female. Like, the needle was at 'E'. She tried to fuel up, actually, but the quite huge-ass petrol station was SO BLOODY FRIGGIN' FULL OF CARS, so she went out on a limb and continued driving.

A quarterway into the journey, heavy, heavy traffic, and it was raining to boot.

My senior joked that if we couldn't reach our flight on time, we should call the airport and tell them there's a bomb on the plane. It was our own version of the Amazing Race, if you will, 'cept that the prize isn't a million dollars but instead, a budget no-frills flight home.

Nervous laughter all around. It was about 7.45pm at that point. Our flight was at 8.20pm.

We reached Subang at 8pm, and very, very luckily, our boss (who had reached earlier than us) managed to persuade the check-in counter to wait for us and not close up in our faces. Also luckily for us, the plane was late, on account of rain.

Still, we ran all the way to the departure gate.

None of us had had anything to eat, and none of us could really eat, after all that happened. My boss had some crackers, but yea, that doesn't really count.

[Random: I've never walked on airplane-runway tarmac before this. I found it totally awesome.]

All-in-all, a very, very fun and eventful two days, and with the inclusion of the final-taxi-ride-to-the-airport, emotionally exhaustingfulfilling as well.

The only thing that I'm pissed about from my trip was that despite spending A LOT OF TIME on the road, I did not manage to see a license plate that went, 'WTF'. The acronym was brought to my attention when my roomie told me that she saw one in Penang.

[MOAR ENVEE!!1ONELEVEN1]

Plenty of 'WTR's, and 'WTS's, and 'WTE's(!!) even, but no 'WTF'.

Wtf.