The amazing race is over. We gave up at the 57th checkpoint out of 60 due to lack of time. Afterwhich, they told us that the deadline was extended by 1 hour. Hilarious, aren't they? Well we weren't too ahead anyway, and the team dynamics sucked terribly.

Leadership. I dislike those who think that they are king which must lead the royal army into battle. Those who act like everyone MUST follow what he says, those who think like they have the final say. That is not a TEAM. That's a rulership. A team discusses everything with each other. A team's leader always talks of the team as "us" or "we", and not "you all", or "you guys". That is what killed the team dynamics. Yes, I blame Adrian for our terrible placing. He didn't even consult us about sleep and just kept making us move for the 3 days without sleep. Heck, I didn't care. I slept in the hitch-hiked lorry, truck, bus, cab, mrt, on the road, in the middle of the pathway, i didn't care. Joyce was pissed at him, and huda, with her two bursted blisters just endured on without saying a word.

Whatever, I didn't let that ruin the experiences for me. The checkpoints were awesome, very eye-opening experiences. We formed allies with a couple of teams, then finally formed a close bond with this team from nus and ntu. See ming, this army tactical operator or something led us through the most INSANE shortcuts through the trees, hills and shruberry. We even bashed through plants. I liked the shortcuts very much, but it just proves that it doesn't take an army specialist to win. While we were taking the shortest route, other teams who went in a totally wrong way to the nearest road, then took a taxi or hitch-hiked got there sooner than us. Hitch-hiking was very critical during the race. Due to us having very limited cash, the cheapest transportation alternative to get us to the next checkpoint was important.

Day one:
200 teams at the startpoint. Everyone was clapping and cheering away at the minister's speech. I just stood and watched quietly. What the heck was everyone so excited for?

Went to places all over the pasir ris/changi area, some of which included:

Old changi hospital- with us armed with only 1 torchlight at 12am. If you looked anywhere else besides where the torchlight was pointing, you'd see only darkness, and some random shapes. After we found the flag in the middle of the hospital basment, we made our way out to plan the next route. I went out back to some dark room with a lightly humming generator. Very very like silent hill. I looked into the pitch black room and didn't dare go in. Retarded. Next time if I have a torch to see whats inside I'll chiong in.

Singapore new water factory - Really nice building. 4 of us had to finish 10 600ml bottles of new water. Then, the rest point inside the visitor's centre. Heaven! I've never seen a cooler visitor's centre before! Air conditioned, with soft rubbery floor like those you find in the newer playgrounds, and there was a pantry, and showers! Unbelieveable. But king adrian decided that we rest there for only 45 minutes. Shirt smelled aweful. But we had to wear it throughout the race, so what to do? Joyce helped me cut the sleeves.

Day two: Walked around like a zombie until the sun came up, then I felt more alive. Joyce kept commenting that I was so quiet. Well, what was there to talk/discuss about? King adrian had the final say in where we were going or what we were going to do anyway. Besides, I'd rather just get to the next point ASAP and just not say anything. She asking if I was pissed of at someone/something. Not really. Even though stuff wasn't going too well, I could still go on. I'm not one to throw a tantrum or act pissed like a little kiddy when I don't get my way.

Singapore Expo MRT station - Singapore Expo and the mrt station look really nice at 4am. Nicely architectured. Which made me wonder... what exactly is this damned huge building used for? Conventions? Like Suntec city or something?

Ming village - Very china. Very hot. Very humid. Very lets get out of here.

Unknown train station - Was quite fun walking on the old train track through the trees and bushes. We had to catch 3 live grasshoppers for the checkpoint, which nature girl- huda quickly accomplished while I was still trying to catch one of the little buggers. Next we had to walk through a train tunnel through mud so we took our shoes off. First, it was icky and sticky, like the "shit in kallang" - only not as deep, then it was red, watery and cold. Half knee length wasn't too bad.

Jurong bird park - Top of water falls. Very very hot. Very very humid. Very very crowded. We had to fold a parrot out of the paper with given instructions. Took about 40 minutes to figure it out and keep the paper from getting drenched from my sweat.

Dragon kilns - Pots. Lots of pots. Nothing else of interest except this nice shelter over a pond there which I discovered.

Frog farm - Had to pick up 4 frogs and put them in a plastic bag. The ugly things looks very icky at first, but I knew I had to pick them up no matter what. I touched the fat creature, then put my index finger and thumb under his belly. And he only looked at me and didn't move. I felt his little rib-cage under my finger as I picked him up and he still didn't move. I though to myself "what an incredibly dumb, cute creature." I put the 4 froggies in the bag and ran around the building, then passed it to the rest to do the same for the required task and Adrian had to kiss the frog to end the task, buahahaha. Some poor girl who had to kiss the frog early looked terrible, she kept trying to motion herself to not puke, hehehe.

Singapore indoor stadium - Made a bolan out of socks and string. So that's what they call those metal kinetic balls. And then, I looked around. People were eating... yes... weird stuff. The one thing that I dreaded the most from watching fear factor on tv. They were eating the duck eggs. Yes, with the dead baby duck inside. Yes, it was on fear factor before. And there were black fried bugs of some sort. Well, at least they were fried. We were given a wrapped up aluminium ball to eat. Opening it, I was even more horrified. It looked aweful, and we deduced that it was a cooked animal heart of some sort. The station master assured us that it was halal because huda was malay. But the sight and smell of it.... Ask me to to do 300 pushups till I collapse, ask me to run 10k till I'm breathless, but to put this thing in my mouth would surely kill me. Yes, my puke activator is very sensitive. In the end, Adrian quickly ate 3/4 of it, and joyce at 1/4 of it. They... looked like it tasted good. I guess it tasted like chicken liver or something. But the smell was really nasty.

Fort Canning - Followed instructions and made a mouse out of a long balloon! On the first try and without it bursting like the other teams. Yes, fear my l34t finger skills. Then I had to drink some kind of bitter tonic which they claimed was malay herbal viagra. Yes I made the mistake of taking a little sip to find out just how bitter it was. The station master said that it was a great meal supplement so I just dumped it down. Didn't feel like puking at all, good job, Reu.

The sun went down... and I entered zombie mode again. By then we had hooked up with another team, Sinying, Ken and Seeming. We hitch-hiked and got free taxi rides to our other night time destinations as I zombied around with the teams. Some guy from the other team commented about how big size or how much muscles I had but how come cannot tahan a little night activity. Chey, they weren't in any canoeing or dragonboat before mah, how to compare. But I guess I just couldn't be bothered to psycho myself awake. It doesn't matter how big or fit you are. I just needed sleep. And when I need sleep I wanna sleep, so I'll zombie around with the team until we can sit down for 5 minutes to wait for the rest of the team so I can take a quick nap, but I won't act grumpy, no, just follow around quietly.

Day 3 - The sun came up again. Sweet sun.

Unknown deserted highway - We had to sit down, hold hands, and with our feeth touching the adjecent guy's feet, get up altogether. Failed a couple of times, but after I had done some consideration to our centre of gravity and force points, I pointed out that we should hold past the elbow, and sit closer together and we got up with no problem. Army tactical officer Seeming led us through some shortcut around sembawang army camp. Long walk, but not as long as what we did later.

Mushroom farm - We had to eat baby raw shitake mushrooms. Tasted aweful at first. Then I remembered... I was supposed to like these things, so I chewed it to a pulp and swallowed it. Haha, joyce said that she spit them out later.

SAF yacht club - We had to go sailing. Saw some T2s beside the sailboat that we were supposed to use and I soooo wanted to jump in and paddle out. Some ncc sea kids were doing some canoeing drills nearby. So envious, was I. Adrian paddled the little sailing boat, and I had to problem with the rudder. That is, until the strong winds started blowing, and the sail decided to bring us away from the beach despite all our efforts to turn and get back. We had to get towed back by a motor boat. So sia sway. 2 Canoeists, blown out to sea on a damned sailboat. Need to play around with a sail someday and find out how to work it.

Sembawang wilderness - Army tactical specialist Seeming led us through even more fun and insane shortcuts yet. Then we came along some sand. Cracked mud, yes, that's how hot it was. We wandered around for so long, then discovered that we were on the wrong side of the river, so we had to make one big "U" around the water to get to the flag. Woohoo. Ran out of water to drink. 12 O'clock sun, walking in the sand/dried cracked mud = worse than a sauna. I threw off my shirt onto the handle of my bag as we continued to walk to keep cool. Finally, after 2 hours wandering the wilderness, we found the checkpoint. So much time wasted, and we still had to walk all the way out. Runner's knee acting up, could feel it for a while. Made a note to take more glucosamine when I got back.

We finally made it out. And headed to a shop to feast on 100 plus and iced lemon tea. Filled out bottles, and headed to chinatown for the next checkpoint. Our next stop was a shop called "Boss no in, any how sell."
...


Close to 3pm, no more time, so we gave up. We broke open the emergency handphones and called for our disqualification.

Everyone was so drained, and went home. But I knew where I had to go.


Took a taxi down to kallang for the finals of the canoeing nationals. Managed to collect a good amount of data on the finalist's forms. Samantha made it into finals but place 5/6. Not bad, Samantha. Xue Li asked what I was aiming for. She seemed pretty impressed that I told her IVP gold. But I don't see any reason to aim any lower. I may have a slower start in canoeing, I may not have the "heritage" or background, but I'll fight harder. It's arrogant to think that you can out train the other canoeists in such a short amount of time, I know, but that's my way, the only way. I must make sure that I progress extremely fast with my collected data as soon as possible.