Each space carries its own mood and its own way of presenting the world, and while many people experience just one, we have always felt that the full picture only reveals itself when you begin to move between them.

This weekend, we are inviting you to do exactly that. With any purchase at any one of our three stores, you may receive a handmade passport. These passports are made in Malaysia, printed with our hand-drawn patterns, and no two are exactly the same. They are not designed as something transactional, but as something to carry, something that marks the beginning of a small journey.

The passport gives you access to the other two locations, but it only works if you bring it with you. As you move from one store to the next, it will be marked along the way, and at each stop something will be revealed. The first step simply begins the journey. The second offers something you will use. The third holds something you cannot buy. We prefer not to explain it further, as part of the experience is in discovering it for yourself.

There is something we have always believed, which is that inspiration does not suddenly appear when you arrive somewhere. It begins much earlier, in the moment you decide to go, to explore, to see more than what is immediately in front of you. This is a small way of bringing that idea to life, across three spaces that are connected, but rarely experienced together.

We have made only a limited number of these passports available, and they will be released across all three stores from Friday to Sunday. Once they are gone, the journey closes with them.

The landscape hasn’t changed, and that’s exactly the point. In front of the resort, there’s still that wide stretch of reclaimed land that feels almost untouched. It looks like a nature reserve, and the openness immediately slows everything down.

Then there are the houses.

Not replicas, but original kampung houses from across Malaysia, carefully dismantled, moved, and rebuilt. Every time we stay in one, we notice something new. The way the light comes in, the texture of the wood, the proportions. It all feels grounded and real.

This is the quiet vision of Narelle McMurtry. Preserving these houses and allowing people to actually live in them, rather than just admire them from a distance, is what makes this place so special.

We stayed for three nights this time, filming during the day and settling in properly in the evenings. The rooms are comfortable, the food is consistently excellent, and yes, the mashed potatoes are still some of the best. Add a really good wine selection, and it becomes very easy to stay exactly where you are.

What stands out most is the quiet. Not the kind you notice immediately, but the kind you feel after a while. You stop checking your phone. You stop planning what’s next. You just stay.

It’s one of those places that doesn’t change much, and that’s why you keep coming back.

And every time, the same thought returns: we should be here more often.

We packed up the team and drove to The Sticks in Kuala Kubu Bharu, and it turned out to be one of the most heartwarming company trips we have ever had.

Of course there was drama. There is always drama when I am involved. It would not be authentic otherwise. But somewhere between the river, the trees, the food, the laughter, and an unexpectedly competitive game of truth or dare, something shifted.

Truth or dare was not exactly in the official itinerary, but it might as well have been. There is nothing like a slightly dangerous question in front of your colleagues to accelerate bonding. Walls came down. Stories came out. People surprised each other. We laughed more than we expected to.

After doing the Forum, I made a new commitment to give the team more of a voice. A voice in who we hire. A voice in how we build team spirit. The idea is simple. We either win together or we lose together. There is no solo victory in a real team.

This trip felt like the cherry on the cake. We had new team members with us, and instead of easing them in slowly through meetings and briefings, we threw them into a river, a cabin, and a circle of truth or dare. It worked.

The Sticks is the perfect setting for something like this. Wooden houses tucked into forest, a river running through the property, trees everywhere you look. When you are surrounded by that much green, your nervous system changes.

Trees release phytoncides, which are natural compounds emitted by plants to protect themselves from insects and bacteria. When we breathe them in, they have been shown to reduce stress levels, lower blood pressure, and strengthen the immune system. It is one of the reasons “forest bathing” in Japan became such a phenomenon. Being in nature is not just poetic. It is biological.

We had a proper dose of it.

There was a flowering tree near where we gathered that stopped me in my tracks. It felt symbolic somehow. Beautiful, slightly wild, completely at ease in its environment. The food was comforting and generous. The river reset all of us. Phones were forgotten for longer than usual.

And most importantly, we became closer.

It is amazing how a shared weekend away can change the tone of a team. Conversations are softer. Trust is deeper. There is more understanding in the room.

Sahin was right.

Sometimes you just need to leave the office, step into the forest, breathe in the trees, and ask each other truth or dare.

I booked The Vagabond Club on a whim. No research. Just scrolling on my hotel app and pressing “book.” And honestly, it’s been one of the strangest and most interesting hotel experiences I’ve had in Singapore.

From the moment you walk in, there’s a rhinoceros sculpture as a reception desk and walls wrapped in red velvet. Dramatic, theatrical, slightly ridiculous, slightly fabulous.

Then you open the door to your room and everything shifts.

There are hand-painted walls and these incredible linen wall panels with floral motifs. The panels, in particular, stopped me in my tracks. All I could think was: this would make such a beautiful skirt. Long panels. Vertical flow. Printed linen. A garment waiting to happen.

The room itself feels calm, artistic, and thoughtful with a touch too much. A lovely contrast to the wild lobby downstairs.

The hotel sits in a heritage Art Deco building from the 1950s, located between Little India and Kampong Glam, two of Singapore’s oldest and most character-filled neighbourhoods. Little India is full of spice shops, textile stores, and temples. Kampong Glam is home to colourful shophouses, cafés, boutiques, and the Sultan Mosque. It’s layered and very alive.

Stepping outside at night did give me a small oops moment. The street energy is… lively. Let’s leave it at that. But tonight there’s live jazz at the hotel bar, and suddenly everything makes sense again.

It’s the kind of hotel you’d want to stay in with someone special. A little bit strange. A little bit romantic. A little bit confusing.

Everything feels slightly wrong.
And somehow, very right.