Monday's Out-Of-Office

Tanay, Rizal – Now this was one part of Luzon I haven’t been to, not until our group had it’s strat planning-slash-workshop-slash-wellness activity last December 08, 2008 at JE Camp in Tanay Rizal. The crew was complete that day, save for Mina who’s currently on Maternity Leave. (We miss you, Minapye!) Assembly time was supposedly 6:00 in the morning at SMART Tower, in anticipation of the long road trip going to the venue. But, knowing how true blue Filipinos we were, it was not until 6:30 a.m. when the crew was almost complete and, by a little over 6:45 a.m. we were already northbound en route. Hmmm… so far traffic was to our advantage that morning, and in a matter of twenty minutes we stopped by Burger King along Marikina for some quick breakfast dine-in (And of course, for some photo ops as well!). Off to the road we were again, and after another of what seemed like 45 minutes, we reached the gates to JE Camp.

BK Stopover

JE Camp was a sprawling estate that very well reflects the grandeur, wealth, and power that was sooo Joseph “Erap” Estrada. Though the lawns and the estate was well-managed by in-house staffs, still, I can only imagine how it was much more luxurious and striking back in the days when Erap was still in the seat of national power. That is, until the entire fiasco had erupted and the local government had to take over some of his properties, including JE Camp. (Now there’s some JE 101 for y’all! ^_^ )

We were divided into two groups, and I was groupie with Sab, Eric, Cristy, Mela, and Angel. We’re supposed to come up with this collage thingy that was to represent our future plans and actions for the 2009 initiatives and to-do’s. Later that day, each group presented their respective “works”. Good thing both groups were able to finish just on time, allowing some ample time to tour the estate and have some photo ops as well.

By 5:30 p.m. we were aboard our vans and homeward back to Manila. Dinner followed at Conti’s in Serendra for some post-birthday treat from the three team leads who celebrated their respective birthdays last November. Towards the end of our main course, we were sooo FULL that we had to take out the dessert that came with dinner. Thanks to Ms. Teng, Ms. Cathy, and Ms. Lily for the sumptuous dinner! Oh, and we also had the first leg of Kris Kingle that night. Guess what I got??? A Gary V. Karaoke CD! Nice!

There, I finally got myself to write about that event. I was almost on the brink of not blogging about it anymore – the holidays and all the anticipation for the long Christmas break is making me way too lazy than I want to. *sigh* I still have two more make-up posts coming up… 2 Christmas parties in a roll. Coming up next! ^_^