We finally arrived at Raffles Marina which is actually the flag off location for the challenge. There we had a complimentary buffet breakfast. Now the thing I love most about buffet breakfasts are the eggs. I love scrambled eggs and buffet breakfasts always have scrambled eggs. Yum. There I rubbed shoulders with Jean Danker and Hossean Leong. By rubbing shoulders I actually mean I saw them walking in the distance. Well Class 95 was covering the event so Jean and Rod were actually a participating team.
FLAG OFF!
And they're on the way, we started the challenge with the music of "500 miles" by the Proclaimers (you know, the Terry Fox song? And I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 miles.) playing in on the Radio. How apt. And off we went to our first pitstop, the Shell station at Jurong West Ave 5! There we got our first clue to go to the Singapore Discovery Centre. At the SDC we encountered our first Road Block.
Road Block! We were supposed to use paintball guns to hit balloon targets. 8/12 hits qualify us for an easy clue.
Well it turns out that the stupid rifles were not zero-ed. The shots go off target and I mean way off. At 10m, the shots are about 1 feet off the center of where you aim. Nearly impossible to hit the target. Highest score when I arrived was 5. And so I stepped up to the shooting range. The familiarity of the rifle sat well with me: it was a modified Carbine. The one I used as an Armour Infantry. Aligning the sights, I took careful aim and I let loose my first shot. I missed. Looking back at my partner I asked, "Where are my shots veering off to?"
Showing off her innately high perceptive capabilities she replied, "Dunno."
I narrowed my eyes at her useless comment. I took another 2 shots. I missed them both. Again I asked, "Where are my shots veering off to?"
Her wide eyes sparkled with the light of intelligence as she scratched her head and replied, "I really dunno. I wasn't watching."
I missed the 4th shot. At this point of the Jean Danker said, you're hitting somewhere to the left and bottom of the target. Yes Jean was behind me.
With that morsel of information, I adapted quickly. Aiming to the top right of the target I shot. It connected and the balloon exploded as my pellet drove unmercifully into its rubber center. Another. Another. Another. Another. I had 5. I had already missed 4, if I missed another shot it would all be over. Despair fell upon me when my next shot missed. It was over. I had failed the challenge.
Wait. No. There was another way. I aligned two balloons back to back and I fired. My round pierced through the two balloon setting off two almost simultaneous balloon explosion. 6. 7. Calmly I took the last shot and I annihilated the final balloon getting 8 and becoming the first person to qualify in the entire Road Block. When I was there, almost 90 teams had already failed. The girls behind me, Zi and Jean Danker were both awed and terribly excited at my marksmanship.
And so team 134 left SDC on a high and we picked up our easy clue and headed for HaveLock Road Shell. From Havelock we headed to Upper Changi Road Shell and then to Golden Mile and there we encountered our 2nd RoadBlock. Nothing much to talk about here because I didn't do anything fantastic. We were just supposed to translate some Thai words. Yawn* From Golden Mile we traveled to Mandai Shell and we had our lunch of Banana Walnut Bread while on route. There we got our next clue to go to the Zoo.
the ZOO!
Free tickets into the Zoo! Detoured here to go take pictures of the white tigers. Inconsequential roadblock here again. One last stop at Upper Bukit Timah Shell and we finished the race at Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim Shell.
The Results? Well we didn't win. We achieved a fuel efficiency rate of about 20.98 km/litre of fuel. Which is very decent if you ask me. But I think the winners cheated. They had a fuel efficiency rate of about 181 km/litre. The winning team actually claimed to have used only .89 litres of fuel for the entire challenge. Yea.. right. Even the world record holder were only able to achieve a Fuel Efficiency Rate of 22 km/litre when traversing Singapore. But hey, it was a fun day so I'm not complaining.
Shell announced a round two for the challenge a while back due to the number of people who were pissed. Oh well. More Buffets for me!
Probably one of the most fun weekends I've had. Hehe..
Things on my mind:
Marketing Project
The number of hot babes in my classes
Boobs