Sorry that it took me so long! I was busy with a lot of stuff lately and now packing for a long vacation!! Now, here's the blog I wrote about my season.
Episode 1 (Swizterland): I'm disappointed that it didn't show the car race from the start line to LAX airport. It would be pretty fun to watch! At the start line, Mom and I had NO idea how to get to LAX from military base so I told Mom that we probably should just follow the Asian team (at that time, we had no idea what their names were) since they looked like they might be from LA so we hoped that they might know a way to the airport. Soon as Phil said go, we managed to followed Victor and Tammy all way to LAX even that they tried to cut us loose on freeway! We only made one minor mistake is that we sped ahead of Tammy and Victor soon as we saw LAX but we took a wrong turn that wasn't going into a parking lot to park a car. It took us forever to get into a right parking lot since we took a wrong turn! Originally, we were going for Air France but soon as we stopped at that terminal, a bus driver said Lufthansa is way much better than Air France so we took her word and went for Lufthansa that propelled us to top pack! (That bus driver knew we were on Amazing Race so she was trying to help us out). Another cool moment is that Cara+Jaime, Victor+Tammy, Mom and I sat together at that little pizza palor to have a dinner together in Switzerland. We all thought it would be awesome if we all make it to the final three together and make an agreement that we all would try to help each other much as we all can till the end. It worked out really well for all of us :-)
Episode 2 (Germany): Cara+Jaime and Mom + I had to pulled over at that little gas station place to make sure that we were going in right direction to that gondola place. Jaime and Cara were like we had to pee, wait a minute for us! So they went in restroom while we were talking to a lady at the counter to get better direction. Then, J+C came out of restroom and found couple map books, they convinced that lady to give us for free and she did. It was really nice of that lady! After Mom ran down on the mountain, we got lost for an hour and half looking for detour task location. That was why Mom and I looked really surprised when we checked in at pit stop to see that we were #4 team to arrive. We thought we probably fell far behind. There was one thing that I was grateful for is that we met a nice German couple after we finished the pie-throwing task (we threw 150 pies at each other!) since Mom and I aren't good with direction, the couple lead us to the pit stop. It was really nice of them to help us out.
Episode 3 (Romania): There was an intense cab race between Amanda + Kris and Mom + me in Romania on the way to the gym. It was just so intense. Our cab driver drove on subway track!! Couple times there was a train coming up so our cab driver would just got off the track right before the train could hit us! Our cab driver was trying to beat Kris and Amanda's cab, haha. But at same time, we were scared to death. The roads were so disorgainzed, people were driving like nuts!
We all were sitting in McDonald's at like 5am in the morning waiting to board on train at like 6am. One of our camera crew shouted that Obama won the election. Entire people in McDonald's just cheered and clapped. It was a cool moment.
Episode 4 (Krasnoyarsk, Siberia): Tammy+Victor, Jaime+Cara, Mom+I flew to Muchen, Germany to catch a flight to Moscow. We had a LONG layover when we were in Muchen so we decided to have a lunch together. We found this dog stand so we all got hot dog and french fries. It was REALLY amazing. I mean, that hot dog tasted REALLY good! And, french fries was just SO amazing!!! It was like really delicious lunch ever I had in my whole life! I know Mom and others will agree with me! When we missed the first flight out to Krasnoyarsk so we were stranded in Moscow and we thought Cara+Jaime, Tammy+Victor, my Mom and I were the last three teams that are going to Krasnoyarsk fighting to avoid from being eliminated but eventually Amanda + Kris and Mike + Mel showed up so three of us made an agreement that whoever (one of us) gets to U-Turn mat first will use U-Turn on either A+K or M+M. That was why my Mom and I went ahead and used U-Turn to stick with the agreement we made with our alliance. Oh yeah, other thing to add. There was a LONG fake-crying scene between that ticket counter lady versus Jaime + Cara and my Mom + me at Moscow Airport as in attempting to try to get on first flight to Krasnoyarsk but man, that lady was SO super bitch and wouldn't let all of us board on that first flight even it was right there front of us and it was like fifteen minutes before it departed!!
Episode 5 (Novosibirsk, Siberia): Cara+ Jaime and Mom + I walked around in the city to find the internet cafe before we board on the train to Novosibirsk. We ran into two young women happened to know where the internet cafe was at so they lead us to that cafe. While we were on our way over to that cafe, they stopped us at one special statue, they told us that if we rub on that statue's nose then we will have a good luck for a little while. We all thought it was cute so we all rubbed on that statue's nose then within 24 hours, Mom + I and Cara + Jaime finished in Top 3!
Episode 6 (India): That red telephone clue!!! That could have screwed Mom and me a BIG time! Mom never really got to hear what the clue was on telephone. All teams were shouting at each other as Mom tried to hear what the clue was from Jaime + Cara. But, Mom couldn't understand what they were trying to say. Our cab driver said he know where to go but he don't really speak a lot of English so we weren't sure if he actually knew where to go or not. We tried to get him to follow a team to next location but we got stuck in traffic and lost them so we thought we were totally done since we had no clue with us. Somehow, our cab driver drove us to Amber Fort and we saw other teams there so we were really relieved. We were thankful that our cab driver knew where to go. I still had no idea how he knew about it! It was kind of funny because before we got to Jaipur, I told Mom that I want to see Amber Fort since the teams from Season One visited Amber Fort so I got to see it!
Episode 7 (Phuket, Thailand): Mom and I actually ran for 5 miles by pulling a rickshaw! Local people kept pointing us in a wrong direction until we ran into an American man that just happened to know where we were supposed to go so finally he pointed us to right way! Both of us were just really exhausted and we didnt had a water bottle with us. It was like 100 degree on that day when we did that challenge. We thought that we were going to be eliminated since we got lost for an hour and half so it was like impossible to make it up. We were very surprised to see that we were fourth team to arrive! We were just grateful that we didn't have to do a roadblock task after the rickshaw challenge otherwise Mom would have fainted and we wouldn't be able to make it to pit stop in time!
Episode 8 (Bangkok, Thailand): Can't think of anything interesting happened since Mom and I sailed through that leg just perfect.
Episode 9 (Guilin): A night before the infamous shove between Jen and me, we all stayed on the top of mountain. It was pretty cold and so windy on that night and we all had to sleep in small tent. It wasn't a lot of fun.
Episode 10 (Beijing): Our original cab driver was so awful. He took us to three wrong hotels to find the massage palor!! That was why we were in last when we got to massage roadblock. After the swim challenge, I kept read the clue regarding the pit stop then realized that that leg was "To Be Continued Leg" or "Super Size Leg". I kept telling Mom that it wasn't the pit stop, it was a twist that we have to keep racing. Mom wouldn't believe me! That was why I wasn't shocked when Phil told us that we have to keep racing.
Episode 11 (Beijing): Mom and I actually looked for U-Turn location for 2 and half hours! The catch is that Mom and I were able to use U-Turn again so that would be an awesome twist if we were able to get to U-Turn mat before Victor+Tammy then we would be only one team that would get to use U-Turn twice! Also, I was really baffeled with the pit stop's location. It was right next to Olympics Stadium with ton of people swarming around! I was surprised to see that there was NO pictures of Final Four teams surfaced on the Internet!
Episode 12 (Hawaii): There was a big footrace between Victor+Tammy and Mom+I in Honolulu airport. We were worried that next flight might be full so we ran like crazy to get to the counter before other does. We managed to beat Victor+Tammy to the counter. Mom and I had a little edge over Victor+Tammy because we were familiar with Honolulu airport since we lived there before. Also other moment that didn't made it on the show is that I accidently left our fanny pack behind at the pig challenge but lucky, we weren't too far away from the pig challenge so we had to run back to get our fanny pack back.
Soon as I got home from the race, I got really sick for a week. It was worth the experience!! It was hard to explain to some people that I just suddenly vanished and then just re-appeared out of nowhere! Some people got concerned when I came back home thinner. It was really hard for a while to not say anything that I was doing Amazing Race. It was an awesome ride :-)