Hiatus is over!!! Unofficial hiatus, at least. Been away from my blog for a while now because I sort of lost motivation and felt pretty uninspired.
Not to worry, for now I'm back with a report from a fun unwinding weekend a couple of weekends ago!
My friends and I had an overnight staycation at Sekeping Terasek, Bangsar at the end of May, where it was supposed to be a LIMA '15 volunteers' gathering. "Supposed" because it was mainly my core group of friends that went for it in the end...and it was awesome nevertheless!
This retreat for a weekend off-work was certainly a great idea *cough cough*, what with the end of the semester approaching and stress levels were sky high. Sometimes, you just need to know when to get your favourite people together, switch off and relax for a bit because work is never-ending anyway.
-The lodging-
Sekeping Terasek, Bangsar; RM1150 for whole house.
Like any other hotels, check-in was at 2pm. Moose and Naresh arrived the earliest (love their sense of timing!), while I picked up Anis from the Bangsar LRT station. Arrived at the venue, handed money to the caretaker of the house, Devan and the house was ours for the day!
the porch
the entrance
the dipping pool
the common area
the kitchen
the bedroom
the shower
the bedroom upstairs
the door to the rooftop
the rooftop
the view from the rooftop
Booking the entire house of five rooms was perfect for a gathering! As portrayed in the pictures above, it has a very nice common area to hangout in; an equipped kitchen with fridge, utensils, oven, stove, water filter and dishwash soap (I brought my own cz I thought it wasn't provided haha); a small dipping pool; and a picturesque rooftop.
Only thing I wasn't pleased with was the lack of water hose in the toilets (as agreed by Mai) hahaha
-The free and easy-
card games; root beer drinking
It's quite self explanatory. We mostly just chilled around and catch up with the ongoings in our lives. I love how we all can sit down and talk just about anything! Work, studies, TV series, exchange program, politics, events, reminiscing the past, love life(or the non-existence of it)...just anything!
Of course there were times when we broke into smaller groups to chit chat cz somehow our topics will just swerve into different directions hahaha And Anis insisted on eating at the dining table cz it's been a very long time since he properly sat at a dining table for a proper meal. Awwwww :')
Tea time snack was roti canai and chicken curry courtesy of Michelle, but everyone was too excited to eat, they started playing the chor tai ti card game instead.
I've always associated that game with gambling (although not necessarily), so I was never really fond of it. Well, that's spare time to chat with Ean who was rushing to finish preparing his macaroni salad (a Filipino dessert)! He also made le chef lan, such enthusiasm!
What's tea time without beer, right?!!! Root beer, that is (halal, please!) hahaha
The preparation of root beer was a hilariously chaotic scene. It slipped my mind that the foam would overflow like lava eruption once ice cream is added into the glass. As I happily scooped vanilla ice cream into the glasses, I sent out my helpers, Char and Ean to pass everyone a glass...then an erruption happened midway!
Char ran back to the table, we were both screaming while laughing in panic and tried to salvage that glass by slurping the foam...forgetting someone else would be drinking from that cup hahahaha I wonder who's the lucky one :P
Kidding lah, either one of us ended up taking that glass, do not fret! haha
cheers to root beer float indulgence!
-The rooftop-
Periscope session; group photo
He got me to be a guest on his segment to represent the Chinese race as he wanted variation in the group of his guest speakers hahaha Too bad Naresh couldn't represent the Indians from being busy gambling downstairs hahahaha
Watch it here: Travel the World Q&A
host in action
"do you have Coca Cola in Malaysia?"
As the session came to an end, more peeps came up to the rooftop for a group photo! So thankful for the great weather that day! No haze, yes great lighting! No scorching hot Sun, yes clouds! Although my makeup was melting under the heat and humidity anyway, it wasn't that bad la :P
watching ourselves on Periscope
-The social-
dinner time; catching up; games
Time flies when you're having fun they say. So true cz it was dinner time in a blink of an eye! What's funny is that we didn't have proper dinner prepared! Goshhhh!
Sure, we had some leftover curry and prata, macaroni salad, le chef lan, donuts and lots of chips!! But those are just desserts and snacks hahahaha
It wasn't a big deal though cz I guess everyone was happy and running on adrenaline that we didn't feel much hunger. Well, at least for me I didn't feel hungry but my stomach was grumbling.
curry was polished up!
Games time! Games time! Games time!!
Moose, the game master went all out and brought a white board! Talk about going all out!
When we just checked in during the day, with childlike excitement he led me to his car and asked me to check out what he brought. A peek into the backseat, I spotted tonnes of junk food and said "Oh...that's nice! But I don't eat junk food much these days".
"FAIL!" must have been what went through his mind before patiently pointing out to me that he brought a whiteboard HAHAHAHA Sorry, Moose. It was camouflaged, I didn't see it. Props to you for the effort!
We played Pictionary, guessing idioms and it was much fun! It's hilarious how Team A's correct guesses were mostly (if not all) contributed by the laid back Faris, but the ones overreacting to their win were Aizad, Ean and Mizi who did the whole Beyoncé "Who Run The World" routine hahaha
no idea what I was fighting Mizi about O.o
derp
I suck at drawing, acting and describing, I'm a better guesser. It was proven when we changed to movie theme, where Mai drew a plate of pasta and I casually shouted out "Ratatouille!" before she could draw her rat LOL Team A's suspicion of our team arose when Char guessed "Santa Claus" with Naresh's unfinished drawing of Santa's belly HAHAHAHA Team work and telepathy, guys.
We moved on to the Mafia game, which I left halfway through cz my contacts were drying out my freaking eye balls!..and I felt gastric juices churning in my tummy. Luckily Faris suggested pizza or I'd probably be too lazy to walk to the shops myself. When we came back to the house, everyone wanted to go out for coffee...and so we left yet again.
I love how Sekeping Terasek is just 5-8 minutes away from the Telawi area! So convenient!
Whisper Challenge
the Yusof duo
Most of us went to our hood- OJO Coffee, while the four of us went to Uncle Rahmat's for shisha. Since I wanted neither, I went with Muiz, Naresh and Moose just to add to the number haha Oh! Gup turned up right before we left too!
We got back by 1am and took refreshing showers (individually), before heading up to the rooftop for durian!!!
Thanks to Faris for treating us to some durian!
Great company under the stars and clear night sky, nice breeze and durian. It was the perfect way to end the day!
This was my first retreat with friends and I'm so happy we made it happen! I wish we could do more retreats/activities together *hint hint* although we're all busy with work and studies.
I hope these friendships would last a loooong long time because they are my happy pills and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
Where shall we head to next?
*Photos by Charmaine and Muiz
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