Regional Conference

Hiya Folks! :D

I'm back and you've been missed ~ Badly! I've missed checking on your blog and should be back catching up on you soon :D

Yep! I was away for three days attending the ICFTU-APRO/SNTUC Regional Women's Conference. It was great to soak in some women's power thingy, discussing on gender equality issues.

Since this was held in Downtown East Resort, I took the opportunity to stay overnight at the chalet.....kekeke, save me the time to travel all the way from west to the east.

This was a shot taken during the day, it has been a long time since my last visit to the resort and look at the individual BBQ pit for each chalet. It was so neat & no more 'fighting' over pits :)

My unit faces the Wild Wild Wet resort so it wasn't that crowded as it was during a weekday.

But really, besides attending the regional conference on the action plan for gender equality issues in their respective countries, it gives me the pleasure to bond with women from the Asia Pacific region too :D

I've made more friends in India, Sri Lanka.....KUWAIT :D and also from N. Zealand and Aussie land......Hmmm.....I think I can start to collect namecards as my new hobby now hehe....

But wait! This time, I was lucky to meet with old friends from India, Hong Kong & Philippines :D It was fantastic! It was just like a Reunion of Friends ~ Awesome & Shiok :D

This is Sanjot from Mumbai and she was the first to recognise me. I organised a BBQ in year 2004 for a group of leaders and she was one of them attending the training program from the pacific region.

We promised to keep in touch and meet in India soon :)

And Sisters Lim & Lye Har from Hong Kong whom I met in Year 2002! The world is just so small & again, it was during one of the regional conference I met her five years ago and who would have thought that here we are taking photographs together again!!!

I supposed we are fated to meet and again, I promise to visit her in Hong Kong soon. She is a verteran unionist and she shared her experienced as to how she was forced to be a child labour when she was young.

Through her passionate conviction & drive, she continued to fight for workers' right in HK ~ that's truly amazing. Lye Har invited me to HK to witness her Union's street protest held on 1 July every year (the date when HK was officially handed over to China in 1997)

Salwa from Kuwait whom I came to know this time, what a co-incidence coz she is also working in the petroluem industry just like me :D

Have not been to the middle east countries and always have this notion that most of their women are usually home-bound so I was impressed by her achievement and can't wait to visit Kuwait some day too :D

And lucky me! I met Sonia (Philippines) again, new friend whom I met in Finland last September during the ASEM summit :D She was happy to be here coz it was her first visit to Singapore, too bad I did not have much time to show her more of Singapore.

Women's power 'hanging' out in one of the chalet meeting & discussing our work plan, now you know why we stayed overnight huh?

A 'gift' from our Korean ladies, yep none other than a pair of rubber glove :) You might be wondering why is this rubber glove special right? Likewise, we were all curious and had a good good laugh coz she shared that in Korea, the women leaders went to the streets and gave out rubber gloves to the men coz they wanted them to help out with the household chores :D

What a brilliant idea sending the message across through a pair of rubber gloves kekeek......any gentleman out there need a pair to start scrubbing the toilets kekekek......

All work no play gonna make all the 'Jills' a dull girl so at night we drove to Changi Village for supper! Yep! Seafood with couple of drinks till the wee hours of the morning :D

Cockles is not my favourite food but can't resist snapping for you......some of them love it raw and dipped with chilli, seems quite shiok though!

I'll just stick to my BBQ sambal stingray and I think it was great to have some pineapples to go along with it.

There.......a wonderful get-away discussing women's issues, bonding with leaders from the Asia Pacific region and an opportunity to have a reunion with friends ~ It was marvellous :D

I'll be back at your blog soon folks ! :D Nice to be back!