#1NSEAD

What a happy day on campus today.

It's Chinese New Year, and celebrations started last week already. There are Chinese decorations all around, BCG organized a salad tossing event last Wednesday, Chinatown got crowded on Friday night, there was street food and fireworks for the few Singaporeans and expats that decided not to travel this weekend, all stores and restaurants closed for a few days...

... But that's not why it is such a happy day on campus.

It is such a happy day on campus because we are the #1 business school in the world for the second year in a row, according to the prestigious Financial Times ranking. Hell yeah!!!!!!!!

To celebrate, the campus is full of white and green balloons, #1 cards, and we even had a champagne toast earlier today, sided with #1 green and white cupcakes. What an honor to be graduating from the #1 business school in the world!

Consulting points

This weekend, BCG was smart enough to remind all the INSEAD BCGiers in Singapore about the perks of being a consultant. It invited all of its Associates and Consultants (and their significant others) at INSEAD to travel to Bali in style, for free.

Three of us, Chantal, Emile and I travelled one day in advance and enjoyed a 3-day weekend of good living. The outing took place in W Bali, in Seminyak. The hotel was very good, and the village was fun enough and full of very good hippie-chic stores, stylish laid back restaurants and cool beach clubs.

Friday, we had breakfast over the sea at Ku De Ta. Towards the end of our meal, it rained so much that we decided to go back to W and spend the day at the hotel. We laid by the pool, had lunch next door at Potato Head, took a huge nap, did manicure and pedicure in a pretty decent spa, and met everyone for dinner. The (local) food was extremely good, and accompanied with wine. Oh, how all of us miss wine! It's not exactly something that we can afford in Singapore… We then moved to La Favela, where we met other non-BCG INSEADers and danced for a few (long) hours.

Saturday, we had a meeting from 10:30 am to 1:00 pm, but not before a good workout session and an endless hotel breakfast. The meeting went by pretty fast and was about the recruitment process at INSEAD and how we (BCG INSEADers) can help. We all had lunch together at the hotel and, after one hour or two at the pool, some hilarious team bonding activities took place at the beach, led by locals. From dancing choreographies to physical games to charades, we spent 2 hours together and had tons of fun. Guess what? My team won, which make it even better.

The team bonding activities finished (again) under very heavy rain but, by the time we had all showered, the weather had calmed down so that we could make it (walking) to Potato Head. Potato Head is a really cool beach club, hipster style, with good food, amazing cocktails and a good-looking swimming pool by the sea, 2 minutes away from W. The dinner and wine were even better than the ones in the night before and, again, we ended up going out altogether – first to Motel Mexicano, then to Shangai Baby, and then (without me already) to some other places.

Saturday seems to have been a good day, uh? It was a bit weird to me though. It was Gorda’s birthday and, for the entire day, I had the sensation that I was in the wrong part of the world. Either I was on the wrong part of the world, or Gorda should have made it to such a nice and cheap weekend in Bali with me. I tried to keep texting and calling him the entire day, I sent him a birthday present and a present for our future house, I made my friends sing happy birthday to him, and so on. Yet, I could not feel comfortable about not being with him. Thankfully, he partied enough to be busy all day. And we are not planning to spend our birthdays apart from each other again in our lives anyways...

On Sunday, I woke up early again, and had just finished a tough upper body workout when a heavy rain started again. I had then a good excuse to take a longer (and bigger) breakfast, after which I sat on an outdoors covered lounge and did some wedding prep. Guess what? There’s a wedding present list (as well as some decor ideas) in the making!!!!!! As soon as the rain stopped, I enjoyed some more time under the sun, first at the W with the BCGiers and then (again) at Potato Head with the other crew of INSEADers that was in town. Around 6 pm, we left the hotel to have a local seafood dinner, and at 9:30 pm we took our flight back home.

Take-aways from the weekend? Yup, I did not get to know much of Bali but I got to feel its vibe. I am planning to come back to Bali and Lombok before travelling back home anyways. Yup, BCG is quite smart about pampering us with this threat right before recruitment season starts, mainly for three reasons: 1) we do indeed get more motivated to help, 2) both Mckinsey and Bain consultants at INSEAD get really jealous (as their companies do not do anything like this), and 3) non-consultants at INSEAD get intrigued about the different working environments between the three MBB. Last but not least, yup, it’s good to live the good life every once in a while.

Other than studying and traveling...

... There is a wedding to be prepared.

Yesterday was an important day. We sent a Save the Date to all our (way too many) guests. It is getting real!!!!!

Can wait for the 22 of July to come...

Philipps for New Years

With over 7,000 islands, gorgeous infinite sea, the thinnest and whitest of all sands, endless rice fields, multiple hills in all shades of green, and welcoming people, the Philippines is paradise on earth. It is paradise on earth and we were lucky enough to start 2017 there.

On December 29th, Gorda and I left Lisbon together. Most of our INSEAD friends were already in Bohol, Philippines, waiting for us. It took as one day and a half, three flights and a ferry to meet them on December 31st, but it was worth every second.

Although we were together, the trip could have been more pleasant. All our flights got delayed. Lisbon-Istanbul left over one hour late due to bad weather in Istanbul, and Istanbul-Singapore had a two-hour delay. Thankfully, Singapore-Cebu left late too, and we managed to take all the flights. My chair in the Istanbul-Singapore 11-hour flight did not incline, and Turkish Airlines forgot that I had ordered a special meal. I had no option but to write a complaint. Guess what? Someone is receiving money back or plenty of Star Alliance miles soon...!!! We arrived in Cebu after 1 am on the 31^st, waited in the border control for 40 minutes, and headed to Radison Blu for 4 hours of sleep. We were aiming at getting the 9:20 ferry to Bohol, however tickets were sold out. We only managed to travel at 10:40 but, in return, had a fancy schmancy hotel breakfast to kick-off our vacations right.

Around lunchtime, we were in our hotel by the sea, and a few minutes later, having a seafood lunch at the beach with a few friends. That afternoon, the last of the year, we just chilled at the beach, took a nap in the sun, played some beach soccer, and enjoyed the last sunset of 2016. The NYE celebrations took place in a nice resort at the beach, first at a buffet dinner with 30 other INSEADers, and then in a party at the beach, literally dancing in the sand, on the water, with a glass on our hands. What a memorable night!

The first day of the year was one to forget. We woke up early, took a taxi to the port, a ferry to Cebu, a flight to Puerto Princesa, and a 5-hour van to El Nido. We arrived in the evening, to find out that we were staying in a really bad hostel. Not everything was bad though. Although the hostel facilities were awful, its location was pretty nice – literally at the beach, surrounded by a few beach restaurants and caffes. Before going to bed and to avoid admitting that our first day of the year was so bad, we went to a beach restaurant for a quick drink.

The following days in El Nido were an absolute blast. It included daily enormous breakfasts at the beach; a two-day boat tour with out 23 people group, including a one-day camping at the beach; a beach party dancing around a bonfire; lots of swimming, snorkeling, and some walking; beautiful beaches; and more. The group was pretty cool and Gorda could hardly be more integrated. It's quite impressive how popular he is anywhere he goes... 

The two-day boat trip was pretty cool, apart from the storm we had to go through while camping at the beach... I barely slept that night. Our tent got totally wet inside and out and the wind was way too noisy for me to sleep. On a positive note, I got to see the sunrise and have one more story to tell here in my blog.

Back to El Nido, we did a motorbike trip through the hills and rice fields till Nacpan – one of the nicest beaches we’ve been to –, where we spent the day. We had drinks in Las Cabanas Beach during sunset, and enjoyed it so much that a small group of us went there for a full day, while others left to Coron. Overall, we relaxed a lot, had very decent (and cheap) meals, and had fun exploring the waterfront bars. Other than the awful hostel we were staying in, El Nido was great to us…

At some point, the majority of the group moved to Coron, which required them to wake up at 5 am, take a 3-hour ferry in wild water, and then a plane to Manila before flying back to Cebu. To avoid such hassle, a few of us stayed longer in El Nido and then moved to Puerto Princesa. We stayed in a much better hotel, and did nothing but chill by the pool, sleep, read, and enjoy the spa life. One day before our flight back home, we moved to Cebu, where we enjoyed a good last fancier but cheap meal at Maya Mexican Restaurant, and the treats of Radison Blu (for free). Gotta love consulting hotel points!

Gorda had an obstacle in his last day, which ended up being a reward to me. His flight to Istanbul got cancelled due to a snow storm, and he had to delay his return home by one day. Yay! Actually, it was all a bit more stressful than this. For 12 hours, stuck at Radison Blu Cebu, we could not contact Turkish Airlines. When the phone started ringing, and after 1 hour in the line, we were told that all that the call center could do was changing his reservation for the same flight in the following day, with no guarantee that it would not be cancelled. We then decided to wait to arrive at Changi Airport in Singapore to change his reservation. However, there were so many people complaining that, after 3h30 waiting, we were sent home and told to return in the following day by 5 pm. We shouted that Gorda is a doctor and had to have visibility on which day he would arrive home in order to manage his patients’ reservations. Because of that, he was allowed to go to the airport earlier than the opening hours, and managed to fly still on Monday through Emirates.

These days with gorda were absolutely awesome. Our group of friends could have hardly been better, the trip was beautiful, we managed to rest, to have fun, and to get a taste of the local people, for a very reasonable amount of money. We were happy in the Philippines, as I am sure that we will be throughout our lives. It's easy to be happy with Gorda. I feel very lucky to have him in my life… Forever!