Utter Dissapointments in Sepang Golden Palm Tree Iconic Resort & Spa During Company Team Building

This is the final straw. My department did a cross-department team building trip and we the committe chose to held it in Sepang Golden Palm Tree at Sepang Gold Coast. It was all nice, the facilities are good and room is very nice. I especially like their very comfortable bed. The tea break pastries were excellent.

Things started to go downhill when evening come.

1. Luggages were sent to our rooms quite late. We reached here at around 2pm but our rooms were not ready yet. So, we decided to start our team building session because we've hired two coaches to facilitate our team building activites. The hotel promised to send our luggages to our room but after our team building session, which is about 6 pm, we found that our luggages were not in our room as promised.

2. The buffet dinner is meh. Not only that the food tasted mediorce, the seafood is not very fresh at all. Services is quite poor too. Plates were not clear, the waiters will not attend to you and only after a few calls only then they will attend to you. The choice of dishes is repeated night over night for the cold dishes and salad.

3. In the evening, we were told to turn down our speaker volume because there's some Kementarian heads doing budget in the ballroom next door. Come on, if they want to do budget do in their meeting room, why book a resort's ballroom? Who's paying for that? Not our money? We didn't entertain their request of course but the next day, we found that our speaker volume was tune down to utterly low volume.

4. Some of my colleagues' rooms have no water supply. This drag on for whole day only someone was sent to look into it, and it turned out that the water supply switch was turn off. WTF.

5. Tonight, I thought the BBQ dinner that we've paid extra for will be the saving grace. At first, we were promised BBQ dinner near the beach. Then we were told that the beach was booked for private function and moved us back to the buffet restaurant. So, when we got there, we found out that we will be eating the same kind of buffet that we had yesterday that cost way less than what we'd paid for. Call to complain didn't help. It's too late for them to serve us BBQ because we still have team building session to attend.

In short, Sepang Golden Palm Tree Iconic Resort & Spa, Sepang Goldcoast has over promised and under delivered. I don't think we will ever come here again for any or our teambuilding trip. Also, the beach here is not very suitable to conduct seaside activities.

Your Friendly Neighbourbood Cockroach-man

If I were given a chance, I would want to get the power of cockroach. Yuck, some of you might say but I have reasons to choose cockroach.

Firstly, cockroach has strong exoskeleton that if it was in human size, it might withstand a hit with a force of thousands of Newton Meter. Which means I can take a lot of hit form Sandman, Lizard, and whatever strong villain.

Cockroach can survive the harshest environment there is and study reported cockroach can with stand a high amount of radioactive exposure and still live. If I was to be captured and was thrown in a deserted island or a faraway dessert, I can survive without food or water for a very long time. I can even eat inorganic materials such as newspaper, sand and whatnot to keep alive. Survivability is the key in being a hero.


With the power of a cockroach, I can easily slip through small openings or cracks and surprise the villain. Think Tooms from The X-files. Climbing up wall or ceiling is not a problem.

Given time, I will be able to grow wings and be a flying cockroach-man. Who needs web to swing when you can fly? Really Spidey, I heard you'll be swinging by this 3rd of July. Want to see who's faster?

Well, there's only one thing I need to improve on.

My costume! I might need to redesign it. In the mean time, this has to work. No matter how I look, I'm still your friendly neighbourhood Cockroach-man. Peace!

The Paddock lane at Super GT 2012

Ever wondered what it's like behind the pit, while yesterday I've blogged about the Pit walk, today I'll write something behind the pit. There's a walkway behind the pit, which is the lane for the teams, media and paddock ticket holders to go to their respective area. It's also an area where the race team will take a break when race is not on.

Taking a walk in this paddock lane, almost certain I will bump into some race queens taking a walk.

And when race queens appear, there will surely be photographers and fans surrounding them.

Sometime I pity the race queens, even when they're resting they have to entertain requests to take picture.

Besides race queens, you will see hardworking pit crew doing maintenance on their parts.

But I wondered what's this kiddie pool is for.

Performers for the pre-race will also wait in this area. The Super GT 2012 there was dragon dance and marching band.

I did the Pit Walk for the 2nd time today and I was lucky to be able to see Keiichi Tsuchiya doing interview for a Japanese TV station.

Instead of Race Queens. I'll show you some racers.

D'Station ADVAN GT-R only made two laps and had to forgo the race due to a tire burst.

#likealousai

Our local racer, Fairuz Fauzy. I got his autograph.

This handsome Italian racer is Andrea Caldarelli from Kraft Racing.

So, next year if you are coming to Super GT, get the Pit Walk pass, it will be more fun.

Race Queens in Super GT 2012 ala Pit Walk

Just a quick update on Super GT 2012 today. Just before lunch, during the practicing round break, the pit is open for those people with pit walk entries and of course those with media pass like me. For those that don't have pit walk pass, not to worry, I'll show you here what you missed. =P

There are of course race queens from each team.

Michelin Man was there too.

Not to forget the super race cars.

Our local racer, Fairuz.

Okay. Back to the pretty race queens.

And my favourite picture of the day is...

Practicing rounds end at 6pm but it's not the end of the whole event. From 6pm-8pm, there will be a showcase competition of the top 8 dance crew. After that Leng Yein will be there to pre launch her 1st album featuring SugarDaddy. Not to forget lucky draw start at 8pm for those of you that has the tickets and join the lucky draw, it's time for you to get excited.

Party continues All Night Long with DJ Faith, DJ Darling Sabrina and DJ KC. Dance, dance, dance.

Okay. I'll stop at here. I need to get ready for tonight's party at the Super GT 2012. Feel like partying, maybe you can still get tickets from the counter in Sepang International Circuit. Wants to find out more, then like the Super GT Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.

Kapal Api Coffee Party

I was invited in Facebook by Michelle to Kapal Api Coffee Party a few weeks back. I didn't really see the event until I got a call from Helen that Michelle insists that I come for the party. Since I have time to kill on a Saturday afternoon, so off I went to Nikonian Academy in The Strands, Kota Damansara.

The party is to introduce us the 3-in-1 Kopi Kapal Api, which is a very big brand from Indonesia. After watching the coporate introduciton of the Kapal Api Group, only then I know how big is the corporation behind Kapal Api coffee. Their business ranged from manufacturing coffee, coffee bean plantation, kopi luwak, cafes, candies, pastries and even coffee making machines.

To be honest, 3-in-1 coffee is not my kind of coffee because I found it too sweet but Kapal Api coffee flavour is robust and quite aromatic. It's not very sweet too. Nowadays I like to drink coffee without any sweetener, will like it very much if the distributor will bring in some of their coffee bean or even better, bring in their cafe franchise. Then I can have a taste of their latte or maybe kopi luwak.

Andrew having a discussion with Kapal Api local distributor's Managing Director.

After the party, it's time for the real show to begin. It's the auditioning for Kapten Kapal Api, the ambassador for Kapal Api Coffee. The chosen one will be doing promoting jobs and also to host a series of web-pisode of Kapal Api Coffee. I stayed back and 'kaypoh' a bit of how an audition for a web series host will be like.

Camera test being done on the Kapten Kapal Api's assistants.

Andrew showing the hopefuls how to be a host.

Besides getting paid while doing the ambassador related jobs, as a bonus after the end of the 1 year ambassador stint, the chosen one get to go for fully paid Bali trip.

After all that setting up, finally it's time to start rolling. As it turn out, the audition will be the 1st web-pisode of the series and Andrew will be the host.

The managing director and the marketing manager of Kapal Api distributor were the judges. Andrew is one of the judges too.

Waiting for their turn for the screen test. There really isn't a limit of age or sex. So, there's a good mixed of young and old, male and female.

And the audition begin. The first two did quite well and the third one not too bad too but spoke a little bit too hasty. I left after the third because I need to go home for a nap to be ready for this.

If you want to find out who was the chosen one, then like Kapal Api KAW Facebook page. You can also find out how KAW is the coffee. I think my uncle likes it, he already finished the packet that I brought home.