Wee hours of saturday morning. I reached home at 4am after work. I woke up at 7 to reach sch by 9 for the amazing race. The race was meant to be run in the south-western part of S'pore. Team of 3: Ash, Xy, me.
9.30.: first clue, head towards outram park mrt. Picture showed the circular building behind outram mrt. Xy was dumb enough to suggest Sunshine Place which was the little shopping mall below my home. We were lucky enough to catch the 132 bus that took us to redhill mrt. Next train towards pasir ris, 6mins. We used the time to get ourselves some breakfast from a 7-11.
9.40.: 1st to 2nd station. complete a sentence given by writing it inverted. took us long enough. next station, the big overhead bridge in Chinatown. We ran all the way there and frantically looked for the station masters. 10mins wasted. Finally found them and the task was to get web addresses from specific shops in Chinatown Point. Ran there, hunted for the shops, copied addresses, got a hell lot of scolding from the shopkeepers, ran back.
10.15.: 2nd to 3rd station. code given to us. deciphered code leading us to Clarke Quay. Slow jog towards destination. We looked in the mrt station and Hong Lim park but couldn't find anybody. A couple of teams were together at the same location. Looked across the S'pore river and saw earlier teams running from station. Realizing we lagged behind by so much, we did a 300m sprint which was needless to say, impossible due to us already running from Outram to Clarke Quay mrt. Somehow, we made it. Task was one member forms a letter using his whole body to form a sentence and the other members guess the letters and make up the sentence. Ash and I were good at this. Xy copied the letters down and we were finished in no time.
10.45.: 3rd to 4th station. Jogging down the S'pore river towards the Esplanade. the river was full of dragonboaters. We paused a couple of times to catch our breath before proceeding. Upon reaching the Esplanade, we split up to look for the station masters. Xy and Ash searched the back and i searched the facade and the interior. We went round the place twice and even tried one fullerton. eventually we made the call to the game master for additional clues though a 5min penalty would be imposed on us. There wasn't much help from the additional clues we received. He just said look everywhere. We tried our luck with the carpark and found them. Misleading clues. task was to sample given drinks and chips and identify them. no point doing this task cuz our answers were wrong and the station masters let us pass. Incredible amount of time wasted.
11.45.: 4th to 5th station. run past the fullerton hotel to reach "given picture" which was lau pa sat. I suggested to take a bus cuz running there could kill us. As the bus made its way there, we shot past a couple of teams which was so relieving. Upon reaching, the task was to complete a couple of maths questions. eeeeasy. Our fastest stop ever made. 3 mins and we were off.
11.47.: 5th to 6th station. find a place which you can have an excellent view of the southern part of S'pore. Mount effing Faber. Goodness! how to run up all the way? we did eventually cuz taxis weren't allowed in the game. We toiled our way up and the task was to find a coloured pebble amongst the plots of soil and grass at the peak. 20 mins time frame. failure to find would result in a 5 min penalty. we were to find a blue pebble but i found a pink one. All the teams were here and finding our pebble first would shoot us up into 1st place. I suspected the pink one belonged to another team's so i threw it down the hill. oops. 20 mins up, no pebble found, 5 min penalty imposed. The other teams couldn't find theirs as well so everyone got a 5 min penalty. Only difference between teams were the arrival time and departure time. We were one of the last teams to leave Mount Faber.
12.30.: 6th to 7th station. Running down the hill after the other teams would only maintain the gap between us. So we thought of a brilliant idea of taking the cable car to harbourfront, then take the lift down. The cost wouldn't matter cuz anyway, we had wanted to take the cable car for a long time. But this was interesting. lady at counter:"$34.70 please." All of us digged into our wallets to fork out the money. lady at counter:"oh but if you add an additional $1, you could go to sentosa and back." me:" HAHAHAHA!!!!" In her face! Ash:"no its fine, we're kinda in a rush, thanks." What to do? it was just so hilarious. We hadn't the time go sentosa and back. Well she didn't know, but it certainly was mood lifting. We reached the harbourfront bus stop in no time and checked all the buses that went to haw par villa, our next destination. Hopped onto the 143 and saw the other teams on it! Plan worked to perfection. Next tactic we used, the bus was reaching destination, we sat as though the journey was still a long one. Bus stops at supposed bus stop. We immediately ran down the bus leaving the other teams still in the bus in disarray. We ran to the entrance of the now closed Haw Par Villa and saw the station master. Task was pretty simple. We had to find someone in the compound and get her signature. Being the first team to arrive, we had the advantage of a head start into the compound. The place was eerie. Deserted and full of Taoist statue gods. It was like a maze. We went deeper and deeper into it until Xy and I passed a flight of stairs leading to a locked door. I thought he was trying to be stupid by trying to open the door but the person we needed to find was there. Hurrying Ash over, we got her signature and ran out of the compound in a flash.
1.00.: 7th to 8th station. Clue: go to a park that is not in the east. Corny. Waiting for the bus. Its useless even if we're currently in the 1st place. The time wasted waiting for the bus allowed the other teams to catch up with us and all of us ended up waiting for a bus to west coast. In the bus we thought of every single tactic that would get us into the lead. Dirty or clean, we just want a gap between us and the others. So the first one was like this. Bus reaching bus stop. We made our way to the door this time. Monkey see monkey do. the rest followed as we'd expected. We pressed the bell for the stop two stops before the actual one. Door opened, one team rushed out. HAHA. Door closed, they were confused. 3 more teams in the bus. Next tactic. Remaining teams alight at the right stop. However west coast is still quite a run away. opposite the bus stop was clementi woods, a park. There were benches, trees and playgrounds. We did a fake by standing by the roadside wanting to cross the road. The other team beside us made a dash across the road. HAHA. Stupid... We laughed our heads off and headed towards the other direction while that team waited for traffic to clear before crossing again. At West Coast, the task was to get one member to skip two rounds around a circular path. Ash wanted to do that task cuz he said when he was younger, he couldn't skip stationary, only moving forward. Miss a skip and restart. He completed the task on the first attempt so well done Ash! The other task was to make 20 skips using a skipping rope and this involves 2 people. I did this one with Xy. First attempt, we tried to get used to it, 4 skips. Second attempt, we got the rythmn, 11 skips. Third attempt, 17 skips, ARGH!!! Fourth attempt, success. Then there was this giant "spider web" where a member had to climb up and meet a station master to collect the clue for the next destination. I flew up and down cuz i've played on these things since young. that made quite a difference cuz we ran to the bus stop and caught the only bus with one other team that goes outta west coast park.
1.30.: 8th to 9th station. Next destination, IMM. Xy recognised the pictures in the clue given cuz he worked there recently. However it was raining so heavily so we had to change a bus that goes to the interchange. By the time the bus reached the interchange, the downpour had eased into a drizzle so we brisk walked there. Task, scavenger hunt. List: 1 strand of leg hair 3 rubber bands 3 signatures of strangers 2 water bottles 2 watches 5 different cards 1 namecard 1 5cent coin 1 pair of shoes withour laces 1 necklace
We only had 1 watch, so Xy went to his former workplace, converse, to look for familiar faces and borrow a watch as well. 3 signatures were done by us, 2 water bottles we had, 5 different cards came from my wallet, 1 namecard was Joshua's business club dunnowad, pair of shoes w/o laces and necklace were from Ash, and we had 3 to 4 strains of leg hair cuz Xy just grabbed his and a few came out. 3 rubber bands were taken from a shop.
2.00.: 9th to 10th station. Completed, we left IMM for our next destination which was the Science Centre near Jurong mrt. It was pouring once we came out of IMM. We saw a group running in the rain so we followed suit. Every single part of my body was wet even my undies. When we reached populated areas on the way to the science centre, we would draw attention to ourselves cuz we were so wet. When we reached the traffic junction beside the science centre, we saw some of the game organizers. We tried to get some hints from them but they refused to give us any. This was the crappy part. The clue stated the place was a building that was newly renovated and near the science centre. We circled the science centre all the way to snow city 2 twice before trying the jurong library which was a 5 min walk away. We just couldn't find the people! Frustrated and patience running out fast, we called the game organizers for help which was no help again. 5min penalty. We tried the Innovation centre which was filled with niggers from New South Wales University and other Australian Us. No one. We exited and walked back to the science centre and there they were! sitting at a vacated sheltered space at the other side of the science centre. we wasted an hour searching. The task was no task at all. We were supposed to pose as star wars characters and take a photo but seeing the frustration on our murderous faces, the station master just took a picture of us without any pose. Then he told us that we could return to school by cab.
3.50.: 10th to 11th station (school). We spoke of our whole day's activities and complained about trying to be too smart about the science centre in the cab. If we followed the group of game organizers to the station, we would've finished the race long ago. Our placing would've been better as well (6th outta 10).
Tired, cold and hungry, we attended the debrief and prize giving ceremony. 4 CE points earned, $30 starbucks vouchers and lots of fun. We couldn't understand why the people in the Amazing Race on tv would quarrel and fight. We had no disagreements and we were laughing all the way. The day was fully made use of. We visited places of interest, sat the cable car and burnt calories running around the south western part of Singapore. Only setback for me is that I missed the choir presentation in Bethany Home. Practice sessions were wasted.:(