Journey to the West: Finally....Volleyball Tournament!!

Yesterday was a fantastic day to me. Firstly, the volleyball tournament organised by Jakub and I finally realised. It was great....we fulfilled our aim which was to bring all the employees together in a sport event. The HR manager was so happy that we took the initiative to organise such a successful event for employees. We also received numerous compliments from lots ppl...yeah! A guy who has been working for Xanterra for the past seven seasons even told us that it was the the biggest event that he had ever seen here.

Initially we decided to postpone the competition indefinitely due to lack of teams. But somehow during lunch time yesterday, a lot of ppl came to me to ask me if they can sign up for the competition. I din expect that to happen at all....and I was over thrilled when we finally managed to get 10 teams to participate in the tournament. The game had to start at 2pm so that we could finish the whole tournament in one day. We had only 2 hours to plan the schedule, set the rules and regulations, discuss with HR about the prizes and etc. It was so rushed but we managed to start the game at 2pm (after the Brazil vs France match....brazil lost). Everthing was so smooth sailing. Thanks lots to those volunteers who offered to be line judges and ball pickers.

Martina (a super stylo girl from Czech) and me

We had excellent turn out yesterday. Many ppl came down to cheer for their favourite teams especially those who were not playing. They really cheered their hearts out...not just clapping hands. I think the huge turn out was probably becos of the park is not gonna open till Monday due to forest fire so everyone din have to work. Yesterday was really the perfect day to hold the competition.

Our team, D.K.G (Deli, Kitchen, Gift shop), consists of 5 players, namely Amanda, April, Lina, Jakub and I. We advanced all the way to the finals and the finals was the real challenge. Our opponent played pretty well in the first 2 sets and they won. I think we played well too...maybe we just couldn't follow their fast pace in the beginning. In the 3rd set, we started to pick up our momentum and we played really much better than the previous 2 sets and we won the third set. In 4th and 5th sets, we more or less knew their weaknesses and we won convincingly to be the first volleyball champion in Xanterra Grand Canyon North Rim (haha...cos this was the first time the game was held). It was really a strong comeback and we really played as a team. The atmosphere in the court was really exciting. I could tell the audiences really enjoyed themselves watching the long rally volleyball game. Thanks to all the supporters who cheered for us. It was a excellent game! I love it so much!! Remember D.K.G whooooooooooosh!

The winning team...Lina, me, Amanda, Jakub and April

Lina, Jakub, me and Amanda (April missing?)

Champion and Runner-up
From left: Monica, Fernando, Lina, me, Amanda, Jakub, Mike
Front: Serhat, Ibrahim and April

Volleyball buddies

Amanda and me

Pat, the HR manager, gave us USD10 each as the "winning" prize...haha USD10...Ya...in fact we din play for money, we played for the fun of the game. I guess everyone enjoyed it! We really felt great sense of complishment and satisfaction after successfully organising the tournament. Arghhh......I'm so happy!!!!!!!