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.
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