Banks Team Goes To: SandBox!

As what the great Alan W. Watts once said:

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realized it is play.

Living the line of one of the famous chocolate brand of ours — Have a break, is such a big word to fill in especially when you are working in a fast-paced multinational diverse company. But hey, being surrounded with a hyped on-the-go office mates surely play will never be out of place! So we decided to put the adventure on our boring profession (as to what majority of people say!) by going way up north – Sandbox!

Sandbox is located in a two hectare property of AyalaLand, Alviera, which serves as one of the go-to destinations of families, group of friends and anyone who seeks and finds joy in an adrenaline type of adventure.

Since we are all coming from the north, travel time is around 1.5-2hrs taking NLEX and SCTEX road. Setting the call time at 7am, I have prepared and dressed myself up as early as 5:30am (not that excited, though) for me not to be late. Meeting one of my office mates, we then drive away to fetch the remaining six at the office and truth be told, everyone is late! So we waited a couple of minutes and left the area around 8am, I guess or so, and started the fun!

I can’t remember exactly what time we arrived at Sandbox but the moment we get there the sun was already heating up and a number of guests was already inside.

The girl at the cashier is also smiling at the back. 🙂

At the registration, you can either choose to take their packages or pay per activity which I loved because I think that is cost friendly since you are not obliged to pay the activity you can’t do. And you also need to pay their entrance fee separately.

Worth the pennies!

We decided to pay per activity since the Roller Coaster Zipline is unavailable and the Giant Swing is so quick to finish plus the entrance fee. As for myself, I paid 450 php for Aerial Walk, Wall Climbing and Entrance Fee. I really wanted to avail their ATV but it was so expensive at 1.5k per hour!

Getting ready for the first activity – Aerial Walk!

I don’t know if Aerial walk is the best choice to take as the first activity since it was very exhausting. You need to finish different stages of physical courses. You need to balance, grip and oftentimes run so you wouldn’t end up as the last person doing the challenge. Too bad you can’t take a picture of yourself while inside the course but don’t worry there are personnel’s who will capture your moment for a price. I find all the stations manageable as I finished majority of them faster as I could think beforehand. I might say, I’m challenged with the shapes station wherein you need to cross over putting yourself inside it while balancing on a wire. And of course I can’t forget the zipline station where I spent a couple of minutes deciding if I will still continue the course or stop from there. I never tried zipline eversince because I’m afraid of hanging myself with just a harness supporting my body. But still in the end, I decided to finally conquer my fear and took my first ever zipline and it was good.

Going up to the zipline!Shapes StationI went ahead of her the entire course but ended up at the same station together!I can’t even smile! 😦Promise, I’ll go next after you! Hahahaha

I finished the whole course for about 30-45 minutes and it was really self fulfilling especially I conquered not one but three zipline stations! This is really a marked in the calendar. I feel like I’ve grown up a little bit. (haha)

After all of us finished the course, we rested for a while and headed to our next activity – Wall Climbing! This is the second time I tried doing this course. The first time is during our company team building and second is this. Wall climbing is a great activity to know whether you can carry yourself all the way up. This is the ultimate test to prove to everyone that you’re not getting any fatter or fatter but stronger. Kidding aside, this is really an adrenaline hyped activity since you need the upper strength to go up. Can you guess how I ended the activity? You can watch the clip below:

Ready to go up!Few more steps!Wait for me!!!!I made it! 😛

It was late afternoon when we finished all the activity we availed. Soaked ourselves with water to freshen up a little bit since the sun is at its peak. You can bring an umbrella if you want but a cap will do. If you have kids with you don’t worry because there are certain courses near the wall climbing area where the kids can freely enjoy the slides and other kiddie stuffs. There are also food kiosk within the area but expect it to be pricey. When everything is done, we drive away and took our lunch at Kang San Ae.

Going Oppa!Stomach in.Seems they’re enjoying it.

I was surprise to know that Pampanga is surrounded by plenty of Korean restaurants. Like a lot of them! Since I’m not fond of eating this type of food, I can’t say anything about it. Well, the food is good for its price. 300PHP for a buffet lunch is a good buy, I guess.

After taking our lunch, we decided to move to another place to have our exchange gift. We went to Snow Bingsu which is apparently closed at that time. We ended up having our desserts at Wicked Snow, of course Korean style again then do our exchange gifts!

Their place is so cozy but closed!!I forgot what store is this. Exchange gifts!I got my new cap!I gave her the bag!

It was indeed a whole day stretch of muscles and energy but everything is all worth it. It was a well deserved reward after our period end closing and a great way to celebrate Christmas together.

As we head back home, we had an opportunity to visit my office mate’s house and gave us some goodies as take-away! It was around 8pm-9pm when I arrived home tired but satisfied. And if given a chance, I would like to revisit Sandbox again and do the same thing all over again.