Once a year, my workplace holds a “camp” (read: weekend of workshops and teambuilding) for its 600+ engineering staff (which includes all tech writers). This year, the camp was held in Yunlin county, about a 3-hour bus drive south-west of Taipei.
Engineering Camp entertainment
So while it was grey and rainy in Taipei, it was bright and sunny (read: HOT) at the Jansufun Park! After a rousing welcome by our CTO at 11am ( I assume it was rousing; it was in Chinese), we were divided into teams of 22 (I was the only non-native on our team) and instructed to search the park for”cache” boxes containing cards with monetary values on them – 47 of those little suckers were hidden in various places and it was our *job* to find as many of the caches as possible. They called it “geocaching” – sort of like a grown up version of an easter egg hunt! Up the steep slopes, down the crazy rides,
Check out this ferris wheel!
we searched high, we searched low. We stopped for lunch and then continued. We stopped for a tea break and continued on. Did I mention that it was freakin’ HOT?? At each cache point, we were required to take a photo of the team. We were also required to stick together at all times (bathroom breaks excepted). Finally, at 5pm, we met up in the “Rainbow Theater” to find out which team had won….would you believe it? It was mine!!!
That led to a creation of the “top 10 things I learned while tromping through the fun park” exercise and me having to address to crowd (nearly 700 strong) to recite our list. I managed to make people laugh – oh wait, maybe it my trying to say a few words in Chinese that did that! In any event, we won 10,000 (~330USD) and were finally able to check into the hotel. Ahhhhh…
The Prince Hotel
Asia's best kept secret... 