last friday was our office christmas party. it was held at astor hotel, a two-star hotel on makati avenue (yes, near koreatown and all the girlie bars) after work.
at 530pm, surajit started shooing everyone out of the office to go to the party, so rose and i walked with gulnar (our new vm! it's her first week) all the way down makati ave. i semi-played tourist guide for gulnar on the way, and realized how overwhelming manila at christmastime must be for someone who's seeing it for the first time. gulnar seemed to like the stroll down makati ave--i mean, it's so much more alive than the concretelandia of legaspi village, where she's staying. she said it reminded her of bombay (she's from goa, which sounds like a really nice place from the way she describes it). of course i had to point out hossein's persian kebab and north park. what else is important on makati ave? hehe.
this year's theme was "street party", although it was held in a function room. the first thing to greet us when we stepped out of the elevator was this gigantic picture of david wheeler (one of the expat bosses) sitting in front of a bar, holding a beer and scratching his enormous belly. uh. ok. the hallway leading to the function room was done up as a street--gray with the white dashed line, street signs (my faves: the victoria court sign and the one that said "aso lang ang umihi dito. ASO KA BA?" how authentic! hahahaha!) and lamp posts.
they had henna tattoo artists, face painters and caricaturists. and having james simpson (production boss), david wheeler and jommel (our buff layout artist-cum-personal trainer) dressed up as BOUNCERS was such a hilarious touch! james stopped me at the door since i was wearing my hot pink "i carry no cash" t-shirt.
"i can't let you in. you carry no cash," he boomed. "how do you expect to pay for anything?"
"uh... face value?" i asked. he waved me in.
Strawberry demystified
as it happened, there was one seat right between rech and our office toy, whom we gave several epithets: strawberry (as in blond), barney and britney. some of us in my office lunch group started finding strawberry cute when we finally saw him smile after weeks and weeks of bustling around the office with this purposeful stride and serious frown. he finished his business with our floor last week and we thought we would never see him again (except for rose, who stalked him during the fire drill haha).
so, back to the seat. syempre tumabi ako sa kanya. si rech kasi eh.
uh, rech? saan ka nakatingin?
in a nutshell, strawberry was demystified that night since we got to talk. he's pretty friendly, actually, but i must admit that the purposeful stride/furrowed brow/unreachable aura thing was a large part of his appeal. he started becoming a little geeky even (darius to emper: "si redford white lang pala ang gusto mo!"). especially when he started dancing. major flashback to lakenheath in the uk four years ago: whoever said white men can't dance is SO not kidding. of course that didn't stop rech and i from weaving our way over to where he and mayann were dancing, leaving poor jason dancing by his lonesome.
but anyway, it was all good. it's fun to flirt harmlessly pala. ugh i remember college--i think i took flirting way too seriously. fun moment: after he introduced himself and we lapsed into this silence, strawberry said, "uh...what else can i ask you?" (nagtilian kami ni rech like a pair of badings when i told her about it.) he gave me a high five when i came back to the table after singing time after time (rose: "ang haba na ng hair mo! grabe!!!!!" jason: "panalo ka talaga!").
my co-workers at the EBU (electronics business unit) chowing down.
pretty girlies from the EBU
Other highlights
getting a henna tattoo of a butterfly below my collarbone, to the right (it smeared though when i went to bed that night! now i have to live with it for two weeks!)...
my friends were pretty lucky in the raffle too. nina and rech won food baskets (rech: "ayoko ng fruit basket! gusto ko ng trip to hong kong!"), darius won an overnight trip at some resort (he deserves a weekend getaway with his wife, especially now that gulnar is taking over), jason won a 21-inch TV (how apt from someone from the electronics team) and emper won a trip to palawan!
jason, the lucky schmuck, with charlie, our resident pretty girl
empot, lucky winner of a trip to club paradise *sigh*
i am SOOOO glad i didn't have to host, because RU made a total, utter fool of himself with his manic master showman mode. he ranged from totally kroo-kroo onstage to rather offensive offstage. let's put it this way: i'm just glad i have a different boss. (on a side note: jason is now officially the biggest fan of janet pech, RU's co-host who kinda looks like marcia gay harden. hihi.)
we went to coffee bean at greenbelt to wind down after the party--me, rose, lynnie, jason, acy, ren, emper, mayann, melanie, rech and strawberry! yes, the one and only demystified office toy. we were actually surprised that he agreed to come along since it looked like he had plans with the other expats to go to some girlie bar (found out later it was cathouse on kalayaan). he was nice enough to stick around until 130am, by which time everyone was so dead i felt like the designated stand-up comedian. after he left, everyone had a fun time dishing about him (ang galing ni nina mag-fish ng info! grabe!) and laughing over the events of the evening.
mayann told us that the foreign bosses try to come over for business at christmastime, because the manila office is know for having the absolute best christmas party. (the china, hong kong and taiwan offices have none at all, and the singapore office just has a tiny unremarkable one.) this year, aside from strawberry, we had visiting expats from hong kong for job objective setting (my new neighbor is graham kelly, EBU marketing director, who has this fab irish brogue. sigh. i miss europe).
all in all, i had a blast and looks like most people did too. will update with pics soon!
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