Reflections on Utopia: Doors, Paint, Slides & Durian

Today (March 9, 2013) we participated An MPK day of service where they host a community outreach gathering. For this particular meeting one of our IBM teams had coordinated to try and administer a redone and better worded customer service survey they had worked with the client to complete. So the six of the team who were not gone to Tioman Island for diving helped at the two events.

There was rumor that some painting of a bus stop shelter was going to take place at the site the ladies were headed to so I headed to the other car (I happen to not really enjoy painting). We ended up splitting men to one location and ladies to the other.

Here's some Zumba to Gangam Style:

Zumba Gangam Style

They've been preparing for an election, this is the opposing party flag

It turned out that at our location another event was being hosted near by so we were not getting our needed survey responses so we headed out to knock on doors and search for those in the community to respond to the survey. We had surprisingly good success and I think it was good for us to actually be out and among the people especially for our community service day!

Malaysian mini-van (that's FIVE people on there)

Upon our return from door to door surveying; they were, to our surprise, beginning to paint over graffiti on a bus stop. We figured the ladies had planned it for us and we of course joined in the painting. They claim it wasn't on purpose even now, either way we all had a good laugh at my good fortune.

After our day concluded a bit early we went to the other site were they were just having their lunch. We were just in time to see the council leader show us his "hobby", here it is for your consumption. His departure was not quite as stable as it could have been so this bike must be his latest acquisition.

The team had planned a visit to a local water park. It was fun, and a nice change to do some slides. The fast slide was soooo fast that when I landed from catching air at the bottom it felt like my eyes came out of their sockets! Our MPK drivers waited for us the whole time so we bought them a drink.

On our return they gave us an impromptu tour of some other areas of the city and introduced us to the infamous durian fruit. It was an event to remember. I'd describe the fruit's taste as kind of like sucking on a pair of someone elses month old gym clothes. And the texture is like a thick mayonnaise goo. I had to take a second bite just to make sure I didn't get a bad piece, but nope, that's just what it's like!