So today, we raced all over Singapore. Well, the furthest to the west was Raffles Place and East, Simpang Bedok. Clad in our pink uniforms with our name in Jawi on our shirts - tired yet persevering for the top prize: $500!

The day started when we reported at MacPherson Community Club (CC) and long story short, on the clue, we had 14 tasks. Good thing was we can do it at random. Since of all us were below 18 years of age, we had to have an official follow us to maintain our safety. Vincent was his name. Funny thing was that we were the only Malay/Muslim group so we were given a slightly modified route. Perhaps the other groups had to eat? I wasn't sure of that.

At the CC itself, we planned our trip. Finish the nearest one, then go to Raffles, finish all the clues there and we would go back to the east considering that there was a direct bus to the CC from Bedok. From there it seemed like a perfect plan.

So we started off to go to Aljunied first to complete the tasks there first which was to find Singapore Basketball Association (SBA), but mistake was we follow our feet, not our brains and ended up running around Aljunied for nothing. So we changed plans.

We decided to go to the next clue which was get to Kampung Ubi Community Club and find the restaurant there. Get the name and get the official to sign. So we went there as fast as we could. We already knew what restaurant even before we stepped into the place. Pizza Hut. Taking bus 155, we went. There, we had to take a photo as evidence.


So next stop was the polyclinic at Bedok. We had to find it and take a picture there too. Its kinda stupid considering I practically live there. So that was the easiest task ever, seriously. The question was: At what level is the clinic? Duh. Level three.


Next stop was getting to Simpang Bedok. Task was we had to count how many Roti Prata stalls were there, and we had to take a picture of us at the bus stop. Okay. Diligently counting, there were four roti prata stalls. At this point, after all the running to SBA (which by the way was a bust) I started seeing black spots all over. Ain wasn't feeling too good either so we decided it was best to break fast. Sak couldn't fast that day. Yet the couple, Aslam and Shahirah went on strong.


The trick was that we finish here quick and head to Simei MRT to head directly to Raffles Place. It was a good strategy as one would think going to the east would be out of the way, but actually beneficial. I never thought we were so street smart to have actually thought of it.

In the train, we sat on the floor and started planning. I was the leader, so I had to think of the fastest way to get from one place to another. Ain was in charge of the map since she brought the street directory (we came to win!) and both Shahirah and Sak were in charge of administration work, checking of tasks. Finally was Aslam, the time keeper. Of course we would switch roles.

One of the clues was that we had to find a huge sliver OUB sign and honestly, not everyone knew where it was. So did we. Sak called her brother and confirmed it was at Caltex House at Raffles MRT station! There, as we try to take a picture, there was this (probably) Indian star having a photoshoot there. Weird.


Then, "find the 5-star hotel that was build on a post office". Aslam was sure it was the Fullerton but to be 100% sure, we called my sister, and she did confirm it was there. So bam! Fullerton Hotel, there we went. It was seriously like a 3-minute walk.


The next clue was that we had to go find a tourist to say "Singapore is Great!" in front of the Merlion. I recalled there was a faster way to get to the Merlion from the Fullerton Hotel via an underground tunnel at One Fullerton. You guys should go there! The tunnel itself looks magnificent! It was like a hybrid of top notch class and full of travellators.


At the Merlion, it wasn't hard to find someone to help us with the task, though the couple who rejected helping us was a big piece of crap. HAHA. This guy was nice enough to help us out. [video coming soon]

We had to run all the way to Esplanade to look for one of the officials there and get him to sign. We reported to him and he said, "You guys have to do a music video or commercial for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Your points are judged by your creativity and originality. [video coming soon, so hold on your horses, my friend] We did Umbrella. Ella, ella, eh eh eh.

After that task was done, (we were given 50 points, yay! Some teams got less!) we had to go to the War Memorial or affectionately known as the Chopsticks. We had to take down the words that we written. "Memorial to the civilian victims of the Japanese Occupation; 1942 - 1945"


By then, there was another team behind us. We had to lose them. When they weren't looking, we straight away jumped into City Link and what we had to do was to count the number of eateries and get three serviettes from different eateries. That was one of the more easier task, actually. We didn't really had to count, just go to the information board and count. HAH.

On train, we headed to Bugis to find this shop where they had 'plucky ice cream'. Honestly, I've never heard of it but okay, we'll give it a shot. When we were there, there was another team. Bluh! We had to lose them - fast. So we just hung around at some of the textile shops until they headed elsewhere. We had to go to Haji Lane and bam. Found it.

That's not sweat. Err.. that just the tone of the shirt? LOL! Oh and Vincent is reflected in the background.

We were on a roll. We had to find a shop named EMPI at Khadahar Street. It was quite tough and we had to ask some stall holders on where was the location. We were given a picture of the shop, but it wasn't the exterior. The clue did ask for the colour of the shop's exterior. Orange.


From then on, we had to find a Mosque near the Army Market at Beach Road. Obviously we all knew the answer. Masjid Hajjah Fatimah. Again, picture time!


Then we had to find a 'Thai shopping complex.' Golden Mile Complex laa!


We were all tired. However, by this time, we had only one three task left. Of which, we decided to ignore 2 of the other tasks as they were not compulsory. Even so, by this time, Shahirah and Aslam were really weak (still fasted) and all of us went on strong.

We headed for Aljunied and headed for a stall called 'Pancake King' at block 119. Sounds easy, but block 119 is long and circular. Thankfully we had someone to tell us where it was.


Then on to SBA. It was actually an easy find after we made some calls. It was right around the corner. I think if we found the SBA first, we would have been able to complete the other two tasks, but that's okay.


This was it. All our tasks were done at now we had to do was to report to the CC! After asking how Aslam and Shahirah was doing, we all ran. Run like we've never run before! However, when we reached the CC, my legs gave it and spasm hit my leg muscles like a bat to a head. I almost fell and people were so worried. It's okay. We moved on.


The excitement of reporting to the CC first made me totally forget that I had spasms. In the train earlier (see pic above) I counted that the maximum marks attainable for us was 215. Since we lost 20 points, we would have gotten 195 points. That's still a lot. And we checked-in at 4.50 pm. How fast were we? It wasn't until 20 - 30 minutes later that other groups checked-in. Some groups checked-in waaaaaaaaay later than the expected time of 5.30 pm. But guess what?


You know how frustrated I was? What kind of unfairness is this? Other teams that came later won. It was like having $500 stolen our of our pockets just like that. TSK. What a way to end the race.


Note: this entry is posted on Sunday, September 23 2007. Anything that has happened on this post happened on September 22 2007, date is for archiving purposes only.

Labels: Friends, Special Occasions