Second Trip with Ganteng Group - Bromo

- Thursday, August 13, 2015


Thanks to Jubilee Weekend SG 50 (7Aug and 10 Aug were declared as public holiday in Singapore), Ganteng Group (10 pax) went travelling to East Java 6-11Aug15.

The trip covered: Surabaya - Madakaripura Falls - Bromo National Park - Malang - Sempu Island Nature Reserve - Batu Secret Zoo

 It was definitely an unforgettable trip with great scenery, great experience, and great companies!

 On 6Aug15, we caught a night flight by China Airlines and reached Surabaya at around 11pm. We checked in the hotel (Midtown Hotel), and then did some research to decide which place to go as an alternative to not going to Ijen and Menjangan for safety reason.

 On 7Aug15 in the morning, we had a quick shopping at Indomaret to buy water and some snacks, followed by late breakfast at Rawon Setan at around 11am. I'm not a fan of Rawon, but overall it was a nice food. 

 Afterwards, we had a long trip to Madakaripura Waterfall. Upon reaching there around 3pm, lots of people were selling raincoat...lol.. was wondering what that raincoat used for. Apparently, we needed to walk around 30mins and passed by a waterfall to reach the nice spot of the falls itself. Not bad, we rented it for Rp4000 (SGD0.40)
It was indeed refreshing and beautiful! 

 Next stop was the highlights of the trip, Mt Bromo. After done some cost benefit analysis, we booked a Bromo Villa called Tengger Asri 2 instead of hotel. The unit looks new and most importantly they had hot water to bath in the morning.  Not particularly nice, but good and clean enough to sleep for a short night before we left the house at 3am to go to Bromo by Jeep. Reached there, we got to walked in dawn with a very cold weather to catch the sunrise at 5.30am. We managed to eat instant noodle and hot drink there before the sunrise. Indomie never taste that good before!

Alright, the view was stunning with a clear sky and Mt Bromo as the background and yeah it was sunrise showtime! Beautiful!


Sunrise
Mt Bromo view


With Christina - taken at Mt Bromo

Finished looking at the sunrise, we went to see Bromo crater. It was definitely a challenge for me who do not exercise regularly. Need to hike this sandy area around 45mins and my heart feels like so heavy. I should had got a horse riding to reach there to save up my energy.  Oh well, but once I did that, I felt an accomplishment and satisfaction! Oh well, at the end I still got a horse riding for only Rp35,000 (around SGD3.5) when I went down


Half of Ganteng Group

Hiking to crater
The Bromo crater
Since I already walked so tiring, I should have a selfie up here

Me with the Jeep - typical a must photo here...

8 Aug - After done with Bromo, we then traveled to Malang, had diner at Pizza Hut and rest for the day at Hotel Aria Gajayana.

9Aug - The next day we asked the hotel to pack the breakfast for us and we ready to go to Sempu Island Nature Reserve. We rent the boat and managed to get the tour guide to walk in the forest...
Group photo at the beach
Funny but real, I'm surprised I managed to follow and enjoy to trekking for 2 hours before reached the Sempu Island beach. Alright, must admit that the beach is pretty!



pardon my selfie


Done with the day, Christina and me managed to get a traditional massage at the hotel we stayed. Shiok day!

10Aug - After we had the breakfast at the hotel, we went to buy food - for gift at Malang and continued to go to Batu Secret Zoo.
On weekday the price is Rp75rb (and yay discount 20% using BCA card)
Surprisingly with this cheap price, the quality and the experience in Batu Secret Zoo was very worth it!
 


The museum batu

Lion King

White tiger

Very cute bear



After done with the zoo, we travelled to Surabaya and had dinner at Carl Junior. Thank to Christina's friend, Jeting -  she helped us buy the crispy almond (over 40pax I guess) and the spikoe surabaya lapis cake. So fortunate we are.

Finally, we went to the Square Hotel to end the day.

One special mention that can't be forgotten - almost every night game 'werewolves'

Overall, I'm very happy and satisfied with this trip! It was fun!

Special thanks to Hans (our organiser) and Winong (our photographer) and of coz all the Ganteng Group members as the best companies during this trip

Kukup Trip with CSTO Family on Labor Day 1.5.15

- Thursday, May 7, 2015


What does 'colleague' mean? 

Honestly, never come across to my mind that I would go holiday or even just go out with colleagues as a real friend and family. I thought I would rather go back home during a long weekend than choose to sacrifice my holiday to go for a 'trip' with colleague

Apparently, our Commodity Structured Trade Ops's (CSTO) department head suggested us to have team bonding session - Trip to Pulau Kukup, Malaysia. He said team bonding is important which make you happy at work.

You'll be surprised that he actually took a real effort to push us to go for a holiday with the money sponsored by himself. He's a type of a very serious boss, yet has his fatherly sense I would say.

Yeah!!! he issued a cheque about SGD 2K sponsoring our one-day trip to KUKUP, Malaysia. Our current department has bout 60 ppl now but only about 18 people went, including myself.
9 of us are youngster around 24-30th, the other 9 are those more experienced and older staffs.
 
Actually it was part of his referral fees when he referred few staffs to our department before he became our department head. But still, he could choose to keep to himself right, but he didn't. I honestly appreciate this much.

So here we go. A one day trip organised by our department CRO (read: Chief Recreational Officer) which really happened.

The tour was started by picking up us at Raffles Place at 6.20am and at Kranji at 6.45am early in the morning. Yes, it is damn early, wake up early in the morning on a public holiday is a pain!

Unfortunately, I woke up late and though they waited for me until 6.30am, and then one suggested me to go to Kranji. It was early in the morning when I was half awake and difficult to get cab and I was kanciong and almost wanted to give up to go. But apparently I received my colleagues' cheering, they assured me that they would wait for me at Kranji there and sincere wish for me to still go.
Oh well, still got another one even much later than me. HENG.....at least got one accompany me late. lol
Cut the story short, we managed to go to Malaysia with a little jam coz it was already about 7.40am when we wanted to passed the Singapore custom at Woodland. Honestly I just fell asleep at the bus. The bus is too big for us so each of us sit by our self occupying two seats.


Our first stop at Malaysia was having a prata breakfast then followed by visiting a chocolate shop and pineapple museum. What interesting here was we were offered to see the pineapple farm and eat the fresh pineapple 'Josepine', but they didn't sell the pineapple...










We then continued to the fishing village and had seafood lunch at Kukup Restaurant. Honestly nothing special about it so far, nor anything bad about it.


Then come next after lunch was free time at the shopping mall, for only 2 hour!!! We split into two groups, one group wanted to eat durian and shopping, and other wanted to do some activities;
 


Alright, so my group wanted to play 'Escape' game. We were so excited but sadly no available slot until 6pm...we end up went for snacking. So, next although with our half full stomach, we had our THAI dinner - which actually ended our one-day tour.









In short, the trip was basically just about eating, sleeping (in the bus), and shopping. and of course chatting with each others.


The overall trip was ok to me, nothing much special. But it's the POST-TRIP activities which were so fun to me. Back to Singapore, some of us went back home to take their cars to get ready to stay late for our post trip activities!  

Total 8 of us (youngster of course) decided to continue for ESCAPE game 'LOST SG' at Dhobby Ghaut at 10pm. We played escape for theme 'prison break'. We were basically was locked in 3 different prison and found a way to escapes. It was wrapped in such an intelligent and pretty such that the game looks very high tech and challenging yet so much fun. It's around $27. We were actually introduced to this by our lovely couple in our department, Janice and Terence -  escapers' PRO who had finished all the 6 escape theme here.

 
It is not the end yet. In spite of being tired, we still continued to PLAYNATION until bout 2am. Again.. it's very fun! Some of us play wii, some of us busy dancing... 

Alright it's basically the end of the day at 3am - I bathed and slept at 3am and only woke up at 12pm and continued to sleep again until 3pm on the next day

 Regardless, it was indeed a full of excitement day on labor day!!!  

As times goes by, I realise my colleagues are becoming friends and family to me. We enjoy complaining about work yet still enjoying our days somehow. I enjoy going out and having fun with them. 

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