Nelly and Betty

I like soft toys. They're so cute and cuddly and were great company as an only child growing up (yeah I was the odd ball on the street). With a glut of left over bunnies, teddies and assorted stuffed animals from both our childhoods along with a menagerie of presents from family and frields, we felt sure that Eleanor would find a little play companion easily enough. We even tried to encourage a bond by keeping particular toys with her all the time. Pat the Cat appeared to be an early favourite until a rogue diaper incident left her with a persistent scent of urine.

Funny thing was, even after parades of potential candidates our daughter refused to show anything more than a passing interest in any toys other than books and Fisher Price gadgets with flashing lights. I rationalised it by explaining that she was obviously on a road to becoming an engineer and geek extraordinaire like her father, but really I thought it would be kind of cute for Nelly to have a best friend to carry around.

We were walking through a toy sale in June and as we passed through one of the aisles I grabbed a baby doll off the shelf to show Eleanor. I hadn't expected a reaction, certainly not the expression of joy that passed across her face as she reached and kicked to try and grab the doll. Of course we would have to buy it, which was how Betty Giggles came to the Chua household.

Upon arriving home we were assaulted by an unrelenting wail until mum could rip the packaging off the doll to give her to Eleanor. Betty treats anyone who hugs her to a stream of prerecorded laughter, something that Nelly thought was great fun.

Since then we've been waiting to see if Betty would be cast aside like so many before her. Nelly has been caring for her like her own baby and it's so cute to see her going through the motions of pushing her baby around in a pram, changing a diaper and feeding time.

I wouldn't say that they are inseperable yet, but it does seem like Betty's presence is at the very least being tolerated with most of Nelly's activities. It's always good to have a friend to play with when your parents are busy checking Facebook after all.

It's amazing to see Eleanor grow more each day. She seems to gain a few inches every time you turn around which has lead to a new level of baby proofing and vigilance. Her language skills continue to expand with new sounds, although nothing that I would officially classify as a word beyond those learnt by rote. She is able to understand far more sophisticated instructions and her repertoire of parlour tricks for pointing to various bits of anatomy when asked continues to entertain family and friends. That's assuming she's willing to play along of course. All this maturity comes with a trend that suggests that our daughter will fight tooth and nail if forced to do something that she doesn't want to.

So after a month with Betty we figure it's safe to say that it's not just a passing craze. Who knows how much longer the friendship will last, girls at this age seem so fickle. For now we're happy to encourage it as they look adorable together and we've discovered that Eleanor is a great mummy. I guess it helps when you have a fabulous role model.

Global Gathering Singapore 2012

When I first accepted a position at Flight Centre, someone gave me the book Family Village Tribe to provide a little insight into the sort of company I was about to join. This was actually with the intention to deter me from joining the company, but I was blown away by what I read and was truly impressed by the way that staff were rewarded for their contributions. One particular section mentioned the Global Ball, where the top consultants around the world are flown to a country for what was described as an incredible, no-expense-spared extravaganza to celebrate the best performers of the year. Past years included locations like Las Vegas, Paris, Hawaii and Barcelona with world class bands and phenomenal guest speakers like Richard Branson, Michael J Fox and Lance Armstrong.

The first awards night I attended with the company was only a few weeks after I joined in June 2008. This was also where I got my first exposure to how Technology in Flight Centre qualified for the Global Gathering. I remember it being Hawaii that year and the developers that qualified to go on account of their commitment to their customers and the quality of their craft. Leaving that night inspired I hoped that being nominated and qualifying for a Global Gathering would be something that I could perhaps achieve in my tenure at Flight Centre.

Three weeks ago I found out I did, and would be flying to Singapore for the 2012 Global Gathering on the category of Leadership within Technology. It's a crazy and humbling experience on so many levels thinking back to that first awards night in 2008. I would never have believed that I had the ability to lead back then, let alone win an award for it.

Global would last over three days with no extension in my case, as we're already heading back to Singapore in September for my cousin's wedding. My flight flew out of Brisbane on Thursday night to get there bright and early on Friday morning for registration. The main venue for the conference as well as our accommodation was the newly built Marina Bay Sands, which is both opulent and large enough to serve the approximately 3000 Flight Centre staff that would descending on its door steps.

Arriving early in the morning meant that we could get registration and check in out of the way early even if our rooms wouldn't be ready for a while. Not keen to waste time sitting around, I headed out into the city with Russell and Si to find some breakfast and wander around the CBD. This included the mandatory visit to Takashimaya for a serving of takoyaki of course. Just what we need to wake us up after a sleepless flight.

Walking around the city was tiring work so we decided to treat our feet to a little fish foot spa. It was the same place that Alison and I went to last time, though it did seem like the shop had fallen into disrepair. The fish seemed hungry enough though and the boys had a good time.

By this point we decided to head back to the hotel to check into our rooms. It's the simple things that impress me, so when the curtains automatically opened after we put the key card in the room slot I was pretty stoked. Especially when it revealed a fantastic view of the Gardens by the Bay. That and we also had three phones in our small hotel room. As I said, it's the simple things.

As we had enough time for one more excursion before the official activities were due to start, Russell and I left Si to walk down to the Singapore Flyer. The ride was amazingly smooth with a fantastic unobstructed view of the city from the air conditioned capsules. Impressive engineering and we had a great vantage point to appreciate the size of our hotel and the SkyPark atop it.

After getting back to the hotel we changed into our beach gear with complimentary sarongs and headed down to the buses that would take us to the welcome party at Tanjong Beach on Sentosa island. It wouldn't be a trip to Singapore without a few Singapore Slings, in this case courtesy of Singapore Airlines.

I kicked off my thongs (a move that would result in me spending the better part of an hour trying to find them again later) and started moshing around the beach with handfuls of burgers and Tiger beer. It was great to see heaps of people from head office that I knew there, a lot of whom like me were experiencing a Global Gathering for the first time.

The crowd really started going off when they announced the head line act for the night (which bear in mind is usually supposed to be the big surprise for the Saturday night, not Friday). Who better to get a beach party going than Fatboy Slim himself? It was an awesome long set and we were dancing until well past midnight with wild gyrations punctuated only by a series of fireworks and frequent trips back to the tents to get more beer. It was one heck of a party.

The next morning we awoke unwillingly to our alarms and descended on the conference hall for breakfast, dressed in themed conference t-shirts. We all hoped that there would be sufficient grease and fat on the buffet table but the food turned out to be quite disappointing. What I would have done for a decent sausage roll that didn't taste like it had been kept warm in a steam bath. Ah well, smile and press on.

In fact the only saving grace at breakfast was the plate of Berocca that they had next to the juice table. Great idea and it allowed most of us to survive until we could find more sustenance at lunch.

Heading into the conference hall when it opened up was an experience that I'll not likely forget soon. Each country came prepared with banners and huge flags that they would wave with patriotic pride. The energy in the room was electric and all the noise from the crowd and stage made sure that the adrenalin levels continued to surge. It was so crowded and chaotic in fact that I was separated from the rest of the group and sat down in the first spare seat I found in our section.

The awards went on for a while and it was clear to see that the show was geared at the retail portion of the company. There were a few categories for head office and corporate but the consultants were the true focus of the day. After a few inspirational videos we were introduced to the guest speaker for the day, nobel peace price winner Muhammad Yunus. I'm afraid that I didn't recognise his name immediately, though once he started to talk I think I'd seen him speak in an online talk about microcredit. It was a great talk about the social responsibilities of business and what we can do to make a real impact on people, but to be honest it felt out of place in a conference meant to celebrate the commercial success of the company.

The next big announcement was the destination for next year's conference, which gives the people in the room something to aim for once they get back to work. It was a short video clip (once again chock full of testosterone and energy) which revealed that Global Gathering 2013 would be held in Cancun. We all agreed that if Singapore was a wild experience then the same gathering in Mexico would be off the charts. Suffice to say that more than a few consultants in the room roared when the words came up on the screen.

With the official conference activities over we retreated to our rooms to rest, get dressed and have a few more drinks before congregating once more for dinner. The theme for the evening was supposed to be "A touch of the orient" so I tried to comply with one of my old chinese shirts. Seems like almost everyone else opted to go for black tie instead.

Food at dinner was only marginally better than breakfast, but that was ok as we were too busy gawking at the return of the morning's flags, drums and other props. Energy levels had not dropped one bit and guests were kept entertained by lion dancers, acrobats and fire twirlers. Then to top it all off it was announced that our MC for the night would be ROVE McMANUS. Just a little gig for him no doubt.

It took the better part of three hours and lots of drinking to sit through more awards that night. Eventually they ran out of names to call out and we were all herded in the direction of Expo Bay 2. It was far from glamorous, in fact it's just a big hall with a concrete floor, but that's where the head line act would be playing and it was a wise move to keep us off carpet and breakable hotel furniture given the state of the crowd by this point. The opening act was Taio Cruz which was pretty darn awesome so I had my fingers crossed for a big main act (my vote was for Foo Fighters or Black Eyed Peas). Sad to say that one of the other rumours turned out to be true as we got a pretty big clue that the band would be the Scissor Sisters. Not really my kind of music but it was fun enough to dance to through the night.

I would have been more than happy to get lots of sleep the next morning but that would have been a waste of our last day in the city. Good thing that Russell isn't a heavy sleeper so it was easy for us to get out and head to the SkyPark for our recovery breakfast. Great view, but once again unforgivably bad food.

Russell, Si and I met up with Jason and HuaQi for a food day in the city. To start off we had some chinese sweet meat, herbal tea, bak kut teh, clay pot chicken rice, popiah, pregnant mullet and sugar cane juice. Made up for the disgusting hotel breakfast.

We then chilled out at the tea house in china town for a while before catching a beer at Brewerkz followed by a cab to East Coast to gorge on a Singaporean staple. Chilli crab! Well, to be precise we ordered Black Pepper crab and Friend Butter crab as well for variety. Served along side several deep fried buns for dipping and you get a magnificent feast to finish off a fantastic weekend in Singapore.

I still can't believe what a great weekend it was. This post is far too long for me to put more photos up so the rest of the pics from the weekend can be viewed on this album. Great times and certainly a highlight of my time at Flight Centre.