Events, events, events..

Thursday
20:58 hours
Four Seasons Resort Maldives Kuda Huraa
C-17

I am sitting here on the floor of the ladies’ room, C-17, with Sarah and just years ago, this very room housed the guests who were in-house when the tsunami hit and as the Director of HR said, it felt like the island was sinking with all the sea water. If you would refer to my pictures of the living quarters, you would realise it is two-storeys tall and this is the second storey.

Funny how eventful my past two days were and I was just caught up with my social activity in Café Faru, which is our staff cyber café/chill-out area. I made tons of friends in one night and somehow it overshadowed the events that are worth a lot more. What can I say, I’m a people person! ☺ Met Ana, Mexican cook, Chika-san, Japanese dive instructor, Sushant, Indian finance trainee, Wilson, Philippino chef,

Oh well I’d get on to it. Yesterday, Wednesday, was work as usual but it was different because we were meeting the GM of the resort, Mr. Tom Roelens, at about 16:00 hours.

I mean well it’s a day after it happened but meeting the GM’s always exciting for me! He’s like the one guy responsible for anything and everything that goes on here. Just a matter of personal opinion but I think that people on top of the hierarchy are responsible for what goes wrong rather than what they do right, it’s like being the goalkeeper, who cares how many saves you make as long as you don’t lose one?! A toast to them!

It has always been a dream for me to go on a vacation at a really nice hotel like the Four Seasons and my request for the concierge, which would be a rather awkward one, would be for me to just accompany the GM for the day, to see what he does, to have him introduce the hotel to me and basically understand what a day is like in the shoes of a hotel GM.

Okay sidetracking, digression as we say it back home. LoL. Work is usual, except everyday I handle new linens, uniforms, machines and yeah, basically anything new interests me. ☺ Because it is all repetition, if you have something to be done differently I welcome it!

Well having the perspective of a concierge makes work in the laundry a lot tougher, not as fast, not as different, not as exciting and above all mundane.

But something Randy See said has stuck to me like superglue, “I don’t count my hours, I make them count.”

And by applying that philosophy to my work in the laundry, it is to not wear a watch (which rusted in one day due to the heat and moisture, fake cK la. :p) and just look forward to carts of linens and cloths to fold and press. It helps tremendously because I think in one day I can fold up to thousands and if you count the hours, you’d die.

How long does it take to fold a towel? And if you multiply that by the thousands, time creeps. But if you focus on the carts of towels, before you know it, it is lunch, before you know it, there is tea and then you’re done. ☺ Voila! Bravissimo!

Oh and right now I’m picking up Dhivehi, which is the local language and according to the locals I’m BARAABARU, excellent! Ha! But I’m only doing basic one to two words, not entire phrases. It sounds Hindi but it isn’t and half the time it sounds like they’re just chattering nonsense. LoL. So it keeps work fun when they teach me because they get so entertained! And I get to pick up a piece of local culture.

Okay, now I’m sorry I’m such a mess in the head, especially when it’s after work my mind’s just everywhere and not organised, which is why this blog’s supposed to help. ☺

We were told we were supposed to meet him, but guess what, we were going to HAVE TEA in BARAABARU RESTAURANT (Yes if you’re sharp enough Baraabaru means Excellent in Dhivehi) with him!

The view.. The view is absolutely breathtaking, amazing, gorgeous, and stunning so take my word for it, beautiful girl or that view, that view, ANYTIME! Can you imagine a restaurant with no walls and ‘wallpaper’ of the horizon, greenery, and different shades of cascading blue! I have pictures which I will post up soon I hope, the Internet here’s not working so well and I should be lucky to get this up.

It was my first time in a guest area and I understand why Four Seasons cost. Another note, that Four Seasons Kuda Huraa was previously Concorde Hotel, bought over by Four Seasons and HPL Singapore, and only after the tsunami, did it look like a Four Seasons product. In a matter of one and a half year we were up and running again and winning accolades in Gallivanter’s and Conde Nast as best resort and the likes of it.

Oh and I finally met Abdul Rahim, who’s our Director of HR. So we had beautiful Belgian truffles, cookies, gula (fishball looking curry puff with tuna in there) and tuna sandwiches. Really, excessive tuna I tell you. Also on the menu were Earl Grey, English Breakfast and coffee.

So we were introduced very quickly and we settled in very nicely with the beautiful ambience and wonderful refreshments. Tom quickly asked us what were our reasons for choosing the Maldives and Four Seasons and we gladly told him.

To be real honest, I didn’t know what to expect and it is really better than what I could imagine. I didn’t expect air-conditioned rooms with dressing area, shower and toilet. I did not imagine diving for FREE and learning diving at US$35 when I freaking paid SG$500 in Tioman, I did not imagine that I will be doing my advance open water here for like what US$75? I did not imagine we will be able to do Four Seasons spa from US$50 for an hour’s massage, I did not imagine free water sports.

OUT OF THE WORLD ISN’T IT? I’m seriously contemplating coming back for a year.

Okay now a crazy Victoria just came in hopping up and down distracting me from the blog..