The Adventurous 4

Couple months ago, I purchased an experience from RedRibbon Days for TY (we also call her moley) for her 32nd birthday. TY is adventurous, definitely an outdoor person and loves to have fun ! So, I chose a ballistic experience for her - and yes, you can imagine her response when she received the gift pack on the morning (while recovering from a massive hungover from the excessive, crazy drinking the night before). She went totally ballistic and messaged me saying "Wow ! This is the best gift ever!"...

And few months down the road, TY booked in for her experience (Oh! I got her a package experience called "The Adventurous 4") and she decided to make Alice and Howie who was visiting to do the experience with her! I knew she will like this gift because she had on numerous occasion mentioned to me that she really wants to try it out. And I clearly remember the personalised message I included in her voucher "Happy Birthday, have a great one - and roll yourself silly and get drunk!". So yes, kinda like a riddle - the experience is a combination of two experiences ! One involves rolling and another involved, yes drinking !!

Everyone arrived on time on that very morning - perfect weather conditions, albeit a bit cloudy. No sun ! It was perfect for me, because I was personally doing the delivery of the picnic basket and champagne myself. And I am certainly no big fan of the sun! The new site for the experience is at Serdang - a good 30 minutes drive away from Bangsar. A quick scan around the new area tells me there is a lot of new potential for development and for our suppliers to add on and bring in more exciting experiences. Compared to Lake Titiwangsa, this place feels almost abandon - it is lacking of the ice-cream man, yelling kids and couples strolling hands in hand. Let's hope our supplier can bring Gackaroo and water orb there soon!

The adventurous 4 looks slightly nervous now - not knowing what to expect ; but the big plastic ball that they are soon to dive in certainly intimidate them a little.



Without much delay, TY and Howie did their first dry sphereing together. TY was looking slightly pale and worried. So while they are getting strapped up and all, I poked my face into the ball and took some pics.





The wet ride certainly was a favourite. All 4 of them were drenched from head to toe. The verdict ? They finally get to feel how it is to be inside a washing machine!! It was hilarious seeing how wet they were and how much fun they all had.




What better way to end the experience but with a delightful picnic basket and a bottle of bubbly ? By now, everyone was famished and the food in basket was quickly and quietly devoured within minutes.



I have personally tried our Dry Sphereing Ride before - it was done very spontaneously; I was not mentally prepared at all. In fact, we were there to oversee an event, and somehow, I was convinced to try it out. After all, we have to personally try out our experiences to make sure they are safe, fun and exciting enough to package it as a gift ! I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, though Nik was yelling at my face for the whole 30 seconds! I literally had to yell back at her to make her calm down !! It was indeed a very unforgettable experience for us both, as every time we talk about this particular experience, it never fails to make us laugh !

Seeing all my friends enjoyed their experience definitely made me feel proud and happy of what we do here at RedRibbon Days. Not only we provide people with memorable experiences and unforgettable memory ; we also have the power to make people happy.

if "the secret" is true...

Everyone is talking about "The Secret", "The Laws of Attraction" - and I've recently watched the dvd and read the book. It says, if you think hard enough, and imagine yourself always owning it, and how happy you are - the universe will then work it to your way and voila you will have the thing you wish for. Because the universe said "Your wish is my command".

As such, I shall command to the universe to bless me with this lovely, to die for - black and sexy red sole : Louboutin so when I wear my red-sole Seed shoes no one will tease me.

Hello Universe ... are you listening to me? I believe in the secret so you shall bestow it to me. NOWWWW !!

blogging essentials

I simply love reading blogs. Not those mambo-jambo blogs, but proper blogs of influential people, Of recent, I've taken liking to Anita Roddick's blogs. To me her blogs are not superficial (like some blogs that I've come across); truthful and rantings of her life encounters and etc.

I do wish sometimes I could be as transparent as some when it comes to blogging. Prior to this, I have never blogged and never even heard of the term blogging. The whole blogging phenomena began almost 3-4 years ago, when RedRibbon Days was still being conceived. Anyways, my point is - when it comes to blogging - how much truth are we blogging, and how much information about yourself can you put out there? Some bloggers are paid to blog about something (which to me defeats the whole purpose of blogging) and some people blogs about nonsense. Why would I be bothered to read about someone that blogs about what they dream of when they sleep or how they sleep?
(trust me, I've indeed come across such a posting!)

As hard as I want to put my heart and soul into blogging, certain things do hold me back. Can I really be that politically correct about everything I want to say ? In the first place, I don't even know who is reading my blog, and who will be reading my blogs. I've written many blogs only to have "select all" and "delete". In fact, to some blogs posting, I do not even have the courage to put it up. These I am referring to very petty and insignificant happening around my life and of course, in RedRibbon Days.

So, if I can't blog and rant as much as I want, what is the point of blogging and why bother?

Celebrating RedRibbon Days' 2nd Year Anniversary

Here's the delayed posting on how we celebrate RedRibbon Days' 2nd birthday ! My apologies for the delay as I was busy with so many projects and juggling it between a rather extensive travelling schedule..

Since we missed our 1st year birthday/anniversary, we thought it was necessary to celebrate RedRibbon Days' 2nd year birthday as much as we can this year. The morning started out perfect - weather was beautiful; it was a Friday - so everyone was clad in our RedRibbon Day's official Friday uniform.

We kicked start the day with an early lunch - with our favourite duck rice from 'sunrise'. It was perfect. The duck rice was extremely delicious and everyone enjoyed it including our new addition to the team, Shiva and Theing. It has become a custom to eat rice at every RedRibbon Days' birthday as this was the very same food that was served to us an hour prior to our official launch back in 2008. Somehow, this very 'duck rice' reminds us of that very day when RedRibbon Days was born, inaugurated and how happy and excited we all were back then.



We then introduced the girls to our launch song - Mercy by Duffy. Don't ask me why that song - all I remembered was I had to pick a song for our photo collage, and I do not have much choices then. Besides, it was the year when Sex and the City (the movie) was launched, and I thought it was a good/nice song?

For cake, we have chosen Tiramisu from Alexis - accompanied by a bottle of Pink Champagne of course!


The Three Musketeers : Nik, me and Ming Ne


The RedRibbon Days Team

We sang a birthday song, cut the cake, and eagerly devoured the bottle of champagne. Claudine our "temp" was knocked out within second, joined in by Nik. (and she only had a glass!)


Claudine & Nik - smashed and drunk at 3pm !

Nah ! No one got drunk !! It was a picture we took just for fun to commemorate the day ! Since it was a Friday, and it is RedRibbon Days' birthday, everyone was in their joyous and in the mood to celebrate. We headed next to dinner at our favourite joint at Vincenzo.










The food at Vincenzo is always good ! Remy diligently served us and attended to all our needs. It was a very joyous moment for me to see the whole team sitting together, enjoying each other companionship and most important - the spirit of RedRibbon Days.










We were honoured to have DK to join us for our dinner - and the night couldn't get any better! Remy even arranged a small chocolate cake for us with the message " Happy 2nd Anniversary"

Happy Birthday, RedRibbon Days !!

We are officially two (okay, because today is a Friday, and RedRibbon Days birthday happens to fall on a weekend- we decided to make today the celebration day) Yipppey ! So what is different about today and any other day in the office ? First we celebrated today with our favourite duck rice for lunch ! Yes, you read me right. Duck rice. Two years ago, we had duck rice for lunch as well, 4 hours prior to our official launch/inauguration. But we were too busy and nervous about the launch that the duck rice was left sitting there, untouched. So we decided to eat duck rice today in conjunction with RRD'S Bday !!

Well, work still goes on in the office, but we do have a cake and a bottle of champagne chilling in the office (as I'm writing this blog) - ready to be popped ! And also the after work drinks and dinner tonight at our favourite joint, Vincenzo.

Next year today, we will be celebrating our birthday in a new environment, with a bigger team. That is my birthday wish for this year :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my baby!

sick and bed-ridden

Once again, I'm attacked by the flu bug and this time it has got me good. This bug is simply persistent; my nose has been running non-stop consecutively for 4 days and today, I'm down with sore throat. Great! I hate to be sick when work is piling and I simply do not have the luxury to sleep in the bed and recuperate.

I've downed a whole bottle of manuka honey, 5-6 packets of lemsip (only to discover today that they are expired) and countless glasses of vitamin C. And nothing works. I'm still feeling sluggish, sick and weak. Maybe the expired Lemsip is making it worse.
I'm so prone to flu that I'm really contemplating to start wearing a mask every time I go out. This is also the very reason why our office has a very strict policy - if you are sick even with the mildest flu, stay away - IF I'm in the office. Because the bug simply loves to attach itself to me, and share the love.

When I was working for other people, I never hesitate to call in sick - and will take at least 2-3 days of MC (exaggerating the severeness of my condition). Now that I run my own business, falling sick is the last thing in my mind - and taking a day off work is totally impossible.

I tried to reply a business email earlier today, but my mind was in such mess that I could not even construct a proper email without making spelling/ grammatical mistakes. So here I am, stuck to the bed, unable to do work! Good riddance! I wonder when this horrible bug will go away and find new love.

In the meantime, I guess I just have to make full use of this moment to rest, sleep and perhaps read a book.

Is customer always right ?

It's Saturday. I received a call from Nik and she sounded agitated and upset. Nothing really upsets Nik unless it is matters relating to our customers. Nik teared a little - and I could hear her frustration over the phone on how irate she was at a customer who was being unreasonable and painfully rude. In our industry, we try our best (in fact, we go beyond the call of duty) to make sure every experience with RedRibbon Days is as pleasant as it can be. Most important of all, we want all our customers to feel happy whenever they experience a RedRibbon Days experience.

But when we already committed so much and yet customers insist on demanding more - that is when we could tolerate no more. Prior to this, I always think yes, customer is King. And being a customer myself, I demand a lot of a product or even a service. But when customers starts demanding for more than what they pay for, then I would beg to differ. Customers are not always right, but they are always insisting that they are right and we are (the service/product provider) wrong.

I am starting to wonder, perhaps I used to be like that too, until I was an owner of a business myself - and I liaised with customers from all walk of life. Some customers are really nice, and some customers are preposterously unreasonable and will say all nasty things to us to make sure they get what they want. The latter group are the ones who pays you for your service and expect a 101% percent return. They simply do not have the simple business acumen - i.e. in a business world, there are invitation to treat (Fisher v Bell) ,exaggerated marketing and of course - every word you say will be used against you.

So I came to a conclusion, not until these people own their own business, they will never fully comprehend this. They are always the group of people who always talk about customer is king and customer is always right. And they are also the group of customers that will always give you problems when they buy from you.

And sad to say, I hate to be bothered by customers like that, and sometimes I rather not have them as customers at all. If you buying from me not only gives me more headache and problems, but tears and heartache (not to mention - a loss), then I'd rather not have your business. There is no one that owns a business and not wish to keep their customers happy - but if all their customers are like the group of unreasonable customers - I'm sure everyone that owns their own business would agree with me.

Customers are not always right, but we always have to give in to them because they always think they are right.