Author Topic: TAR CANADA 2 Contestants - Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner (Married)  (Read 5777 times)

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Offline Alenaveda

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Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner (Married)


Laura Takahashi

Twitter: @laura_tak
 
Age: 28
Occupation: Media Development
Current City: Toronto
Hometown: Barrie, Ont.
Strengths: Determined, logical, creative
Fears/Phobias: Bugs
Favourite Travel Destination: Railay, Thailand
Pet Peeve about Teammate: “She vacuums before she eats breakfast.”
 
Jackie Skinner

Twitter: @JackieSkinz
 
Age: 31
Occupation: Musician
Current City: Toronto
Hometown: Oshawa, Ont.
Strengths: Understanding, willpower, communication
Fears/Phobias: “Birds flying near my head!”
Favourite Travel Destination: “I love the whole world.”
Pet Peeve about Teammate: “She leaves dried up daily contacts all over the house.”
 
TEAM BIO
 
Laura and Jackie met 15 years ago as camp counselors, quickly became close friends, and before long they began dating. Recently, after an elaborate proposal that Jackie sprung on Laura while they were travelling in Vietnam, the couple decided to take the final leap and get married.
 
The pair are dedicated humanitarians who enjoy travelling the world to embrace and discover breathtaking scenes in the landscapes around them, and find peace in helping others. They volunteer for many different causes and consider themselves planners and doers, always completing a task close to their hearts. However, no matter how often they explore the world, not being able to predict every scenario and being in unknown situations tends to bring a level of stress between the two of them.
 
“We may struggle as a team with problem solving challenges,” said Laura. “But Jackie will do well with anything thrilling – the bigger the better!” “Laura will be good at memory challenges,” adds Jackie.
 
Winning 'The Amazing Race Canada' would affirm their belief that they can accomplish anything together as women. They have many helpful mentors in their lives and would like to now be role models themselves.
 
Motto: “No hesitation.”
 
Team they most associate with from Season 1:
Vanessa and Celina.
 
"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"No person deserves your tears, and who deserves them will not make you cry." - Gabriel García Márquez

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Laura and Jackie say being used to spending 24 hours a day together will give them the edge on 'The Amazing Race Canada'

Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner already live together, work together and travel together and they’re excited to spend even more time together running “The Amazing Race Canada.” In fact, this married couple from Toronto thinks it’s exactly what’s going to give them the edge.
 
“We literally probably are with each 24 hours a day most days. We really know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and really just rely on each other . . . I’m pretty stoked. I think it’s going to be pretty exciting,” says Jackie, 31, a musician.
 
“We’ll have the opportunity to take leadership roles at different times because we know what each other’s strengths are and we’ll be able to really feel each other and make sure we’re on the same page all the time,” adds Laura, 28, who works in media development.
 
The couple met while working as camp counsellors 15 years ago and soon became best friends. It wasn’t long before they started dating and were married last August.
 
“It’s been wonderful ever since,” says Jackie.

Read More: Laura and Jackie's Bio
 
They also own a start-up media company together, something they say will also benefit them while on the “Race.”
 
“We plan things really well but we also tend to trouble shoot really quickly,” says Laura.
The team hopes it all works to their advantage.
 
“I think we are a pretty unassuming team. We’re pretty small girls, we’re not the big strong looking team.

Laura’s a very humble person and extremely smart. Her memory is incredible,” says Jackie.
 
“I hope people underestimate (us),” says Laura.
 
The couple also pride themselves on being humanitarians and say winning “The Amazing Race Canada” would help them give back to communities in some of the developing countries they visited.
 
“We’d really like to give back to a lot of the people we have met across the world while travelling. We met some amazing people who don’t have the means we do here. Any little thing can help them out huge,” says Jackie. 
 
“We’d also love to be able to adopt some children and start a family with the money. It’s expensive. We’d like to go across the world and adopt some children. It would be a really cool thing.”

Source:http://www.ctv.ca/TheAmazingRaceCanada/Articles/Season-Two/amazing_race_canada_season_2_Laura_Jackie_24_hours.aspx


Offline Polaroid

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Quote
Pet Peeve about Teammate: “She vacuums before she eats breakfast.”
Quote
Pet Peeve about Teammate: “She leaves dried up daily contacts all over the house.”

Omg what. :funny:

Offline Leafsfan.

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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/g7GiWBG6Cts" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/g7GiWBG6Cts</a>

Credit: Youtube user: cisolatw

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Second fave team <3


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They may be INV, but they're my fave Lesbian team ever to run the Race <3

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They may be INV, but they're my fave Lesbian team ever to run the Race <3
I agree!
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better; it's not" - The Lorax

Offline Leafsfan.

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Toronto married duo ousted from 'Amazing Race Canada'
TORONTO -- A surprise trek to the far East did nothing to displace the direction of "The Amazing Race Canada," with the dominant Olympians Meaghan Mikkelson and Natalie Spooner skating to yet another first-place finish in an episode that became a clash between two teams lost in the supermarket.
Ultimately, spunky Toronto married duo Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner were the third team to be eliminated during a dizzying tour of Hong Kong, a trip that marked "The Amazing Race Canada"'s first-ever international sojourn.
Word of that journey was greeted with wonderstruck squeals from nearly all of the nine remaining duos (excitable siblings Sukhi and Jinder Atwal seemed to climb highest on the decibel scale), and so too was news of the unlikely survival of ballet virtuoso Rex Harrington and his fiance Bob Hope.
They narrowly avoided elimination in last week's second episode, when Halifax parents Jen and Shawn King were elbowed out of the race by the latter's dislocated shoulder. The reprieve was unlikely and, perhaps, undeserved, given that Harrington and Hope had quit on back-to-back challenges in that episode and thus accrued enough penalty time to impress Tiger Williams.
"We're in loser last," said a chastened Harrington at the beginning of this week's episode, raising a mimed "L" to his forehead.
"Our goal is really to have redemption and move on."
Humbled though the couple apparently was, they still announced their continued existence to the other teams -- who wouldn't have yet known who got eliminated -- by materializing at the airport, trilling "we're baaaack" and punctuating the bulletin with a series of (obviously) well-executed pique turns from Harrington.
Their renewed confidence was proven justified, given that all the teams then embarked upon the same 10,000-kilometre flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong and stared down a newly levelled playing field.
After a whisk through several local landmarks -- Lantau Peak! Ngong Ping Village! The Tian Tan Buddha! -- the teams climbed some stairs, received a blessing from a group of monks and headed to the Golden Dragon sculpture. There, they made a detour decision that would essentially determine which duos would survive, so stark was the difference in difficulty between the two tasks.
The first challenge required teams to locate the Michelin-certified restaurant Bo Innovation and its stoic owner, "MasterChef Canada" judge Alvin Leung, who would then shoo them off to the Wan Chai Wet Market armed with a 10-ingredient shopping list. The second challenge required teams to put on silky white uniforms and learn a "complicated" kung fu routine.
All but two teams chose the latter, while Mikkelson and Spooner sped past the whole ordeal by using the Express Pass they won on their first leg. The hockey stars have thus won all three legs of the race so far.
Harrington and Hope were the only duo to briefly waffle, with Harrington -- who wanted the martial-arts challenge -- ultimately getting his way with a sturdy trump card.
"I am Rex Harrington. I have a star on the Walk of Fame. I have an Order of Canada from my dance career," said Harrington, who along with his partner had a much better week with a seventh-place finish. "I should be able to do this."
They weren't the only team to express confidence. Dating Montreal couple Alain Chanoine and Audrey Tousignant-Maurice similarly figured the kung fu challenge would be a breeze.
"I'm an actor, stunt performer, I have a black belt in karate," Alain said. "If we work together, we'll be No. 1."
In reality, the challenge boiled down to manoeuvring in graceful unison while swinging long, slender sticks, which teams mastered with varying degrees of violent panache. Most took a subdued approach, though Winnipeg mother-son duo Cormac and Nicole Foster actually theorized they could conquer the challenge faster if they yelled a lot.
They were then the first team to successfully finish it.
"The yelling helped," Nicole concluded.
"Yes it did," replied her son.
But really, no team struggled to any serious degree other than Chanoine and an increasingly distressed Tousignant-Maurice, who shed tears of frustration over the eight required attempts.
She might have relaxed if she knew about the overwhelming ordeal unspooling across town.
As it turns out, questing through a massive foreign market with a long list of (English) ingredients -- which included such obscurities as a tin of Jakeman's Canadian maple syrup, a bottle of Shaoxing wine and a package of vanilla beans -- is vexing and time-consuming.
Only Laura and Jackie and the Atwals attempted it. Even enlisting the assistance (and patience) of an English-speaking local didn't bail out Laura and Jackie, whose first submission to Leung was tersely rejected because they bought plump Sichuan chili peppers instead of Sichuan peppercorns.
"He is definitely the Demon Chef," muttered Laura with a smile.
Both teams eventually nailed it, and did so without any ugly (onscreen) arguments. But by then they were fighting for last place.
That's because the final obstacles posed little challenge. The final -- which required teams to overact under the supervision of a local director and a few photo-snapping locals -- was a mere formality, while the obligatory foreign-food-is-weird gross-out segment provided good TV if not an actual challenge.
At the apparently century-old diner She Wong Lam, competitors were to remove a snake's gall bladder (which looked like a chewed wad of bubblegum), extract the bile and suck back the forest-green ooze from a shot glass. They were then to eat a bowl of snake-meat soup.
After some wide-eyed glances and steadying gulps, no one was seriously stalled by the task and many saw an opportunity for a quip. Sukhi questioned whether the soup was gluten-free while Meaghan whispered, "Hello, my little friend," as she withdrew the gall bladder.
Jackie did initially look nauseated by the prospect.
"I'm vegetarian," she said. "Anything that comes out of a snake, I don't think I should eat."
Then, of course, she accomplished the task with little fuss, which characterized the couple's short stint on the show.
Laura and Jackie met as co-workers at a camp 16 years ago, became good friends, started a romantic relationship together, then got married. Before the show started they attested to their inseparability, which apparently felt heightened after the race.
"It's just really brought us closer and closer together," Laura said after they were eliminated.
"I'm extremely, extremely lucky. You're the most beautiful girl in the world," said Jackie.
In their three episodes, the pair was never really shown fighting. In their final one, choosing a fight might have saved them.

Read more: http://www.cp24.com/entertainment-news/toronto-married-duo-ousted-from-amazing-race-canada-1.1927361#ixzz38JEByD8J

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The Amazing Race Canada: Five questions with Laura & Jackie

Married duo Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner may be the latest contestants to be eliminated from The Amazing Race Canada, but they ended their journey in Hong Kong – the first international destination in the show's history.  Not too shabby.

We snagged a few web-exclusive questions with the couple when they stopped by The Social to dish on their experience.  Here's what they had to say about the items they wished they had in tow, what they missed about home and that oozy snake bile.

Q.  If you could choose a theme song for your journey in Hong Kong, what would it be?

Jackie:  “Don't Stop Believin.'”

Laura:  That's kind of what it takes, even when you know that you're fighting for last place, you have to keep going no matter what. And that's what (Jackie) did when she went through that snake challenge.

Q.  So, about that snake bile...and the soup. Did it taste as bad as it looked?

Jackie:  The bile was disgusting. It was so gross. But to be honest shots of any kind are sometimes really gross, so it's just (a matter of) saying, 'Okay, do the shot and get on with it.' I can't even describe what it tastes like because I've never had anything like that before. With the snake soup, obviously we had an idea it was going to have snake in it, but they don't tell you exactly what's in it – I just pretended it was chicken noodle soup or something like that.

Q.  Next week, the competition heads to Macau, China. If you could have picked anywhere in the world to compete in this race, where would you want to go?

Jackie:  It's funny because China probably would have been up there on that list. We've been over to that side of the world but we haven't been to China, and that's been one of the countries on our list that we've wanted to travel to. Africa would have been another huge one – we keep talking about going somewhere in Africa.

Q.  What did you miss the most about home?

Jackie:  Laura's my home pretty much, so honestly, wherever we are together I feel that sense of being home. It doesn't matter where we are in the world.

Laura:  I always find that as much as we love travelling, I love being back in Canada because I feel the comfort of being recognized that we're married. That's something we don't necessarily get in every country and we have to approach a country (according) to their cultural norms versus ours. So to come back to Canada and hold my wife's hand and to be openly out with her is really such a privilege.

Q.  You weren't allowed to bring a lot of personal items (i.e. cellphone, music devices, books, etc.) with you during the competition. If you could have brought any item with you on your journey, what would it have been and why?

Laura:  I would have loved to have brought a camera. It's cool to watch the race from the show's perspective, but to capture some stuff from our own perspective would have been cool too because everything happens so fast. We're trying to hold on to every single memory that we can, really.

Jackie:  I probably would have brought a ukulele or a mandolin, or something like that

Source:http://www.thesocial.ca/culture/television/the-amazing-race-canada-five-questions-with-laura

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CP: There was a real imbalance between the difficulty of the two Detour options. How much do you guys regret not doing the martial arts challenge?
Laura: It's not really regret, but it's more of a learning experience. ... Our learning point there would be to properly assess both sides of the Detour before making our decision. If they had presented us with a shopping list before we chose the Detour, we might have steered away from it.
Jackie: Halfway through, we were starting to read the clues for the other challenge, and ... we were talking about if we should go and switch. But at the end of the day, we're not good at kung fu either. So it's like, we went with the one that we thought that we obviously knew the most about. You live and die by the Detour so that was kind our time to go.
___
CP: It really seemed as though the two of you got along swimmingly. Is that pretty accurate?
Jackie: Very accurate. They didn't show any (fights) because we really didn't disagree or argue. Of course there were a few times where we got a little flustered. But we really, at those moments, if Laura was getting a little frustrated or vice versa, we'd both take a minute and know that the other one would step in.
___
CP: You told me before the race that you wanted to show Canada what a young gay married couple looks like. Are you happy with how you presented your relationship?
Jackie: Absolutely. The support across Canada that we're getting and all the social media stuff and the texts and emails and everything, I believe that we reached that goal of what we were trying to accomplish and trying to show. So far, it's been nothing but positivity. It's really cool too when we have younger gay kids and stuff reaching out — that is exactly why we wanted to go on the show.
Laura: It's just so, so heartwarming. Going into last night's episode, you're filled with a little bit of dread knowing that your end of race is coming. But at the same time, for everybody to be lifting us up and telling us how proud they are of us, it's really so encouraging. It makes us want to just do it all over again.

Source:http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/TV/toronto-married-duo-ousted-from-amazing-race-canada-in-hong-kong-based-episode-268235882.html


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Ruth Myles: Jackie and Laura talk about choosing the wrong challenge on The Amazing Race Canada

While Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner’s journey on The Amazing Race Canada started on a beach in Nicaragua when they got the call they would be on the show, it ended in Hong Kong when the duo were last to check in at the Pit Stop. I caught up with the married couple from Toronto the morning after the Hong Kong episode aired to chat about out their highs and lows on the Race.

Question: You’ve travelled extensively together. How was this different?

Laura Takahashi: I think that was one of the biggest surprises. Something we didn’t really identify as part of characteristics is how organized, prepared and planned we are when we go travelling. We still leave things, the day-to-day activities, to be spontaneous, but we have an idea of what we want to do while we’re in a city. But then, when you get to the Race and you don’t know where you’re going, what you’re going to be doing, it adds this whole element where you’re in-between fear and excitement. Certain times it’s fear and certain times it’s absolutely thrilling. But having been through the Race, the thrilling part of it is something you can’t get from anything else.

Q: What kept you going? You were contenders, once we saw you in action.

LT: We really tried to bring everything that we got. After the first leg, especially, we were really feeling confident about our ability, our strength. Getting through the flight challenge was extremely difficult but at the same time we passed it so easily we thought we had a leg up. Our downfall was our decision we made between the Detours on this third leg. We went with something we chose based on our experience. At that point, when we made the decision, we didn’t know the list of items we would have and how long it was going to take us to find those items. Even though our experience was to pick that, it might have been the wiser choice to pick something we could have learned. You can say that, but I wouldn’t trade our experience for anything.
 

Q: How long were you in the market?

LT: Time passes on the Race and you have no idea. You are wearing a watch, but you don’t look at it much. We were probably there for a couple of hours. I know we were running back and forth between the stalls and it was quite hectic.

Q: Did you think the Race was going overseas this season because applicants had to have a passport?

LT: When we were applying for the second season, we were hopeful that the second season would be amped up and take the show to the next level. We thought maybe we could go international, but we didn’t know. The passport wasn’t really a tip off. As we were meeting with the producers, we were pretty positive that we were going to stay in Canada. When we read the clue that we were travelling to Tofino that really solidified in our minds that we were staying in Canada. So then to read the clue that we were going to Hong Kong, it really, really shocked us. Our minds were ready to go. You go wherever the Race wants you to go.

 

Q: What was one of the high points of your Race experience?

LT: Definitely the high point of my Race experience was really all the moments I shared with Jackie where she was just so encouraging. I have a little bit of demon in myself where I am hard on myself. When I was building the chair in Tofino and when we got set back on the fish challenge, I was having a really hard time dealing with the pressure. Jackie was really good about encouraging me and listening to me and lifting me up to go on. I really value that and I really treasure the fact that we didn’t crumble and we never got at each other’s throats. . . If you’re not racing together, you’re racing alone.

Q: Jackie, Laura shared her high point on the Race. What was a low point?

JS: Actually the fish in Tofino was a moment. I think we were there for two and a half, three hours. Obviously on the show, you don’t get the idea of how long people are actually doing a challenge. When we ran out of fish doing the fileting and we were basically stuck 100 percent on this sorting the fish thing. We both had no idea about fish. . . . Laura normally is my leader in life, so when she looked at me and she was, ‘I completely don’t know,’ I was, ‘I have to be the one to help get through this,’ which is funny because that’s not really my role in this relationship . . . . Anything past that was bonus for us, in our minds because we felt like at that moment we were probably going home.

 

Q: Viewers got some sense of it, but how long was that day in Hong Kong with the flights and how much of a struggle was it to get through?

JS: It was definitely a long leg. But it’s The Amazing Race and we’ve all seen this over and over again. That’s how it goes. Getting off the plane and running and racing was pretty challenging. You’ve got so much adrenaline going on that nothing will stop you on the days you are racing. So much adrenalin! That carries you through every sort of weakness that sort of weakness you think you have. Of course that challenge that was the reason we got out, but at the same time, it was so much fun. We had so much fun doing that. We were running around and laughing. We had a blast doing that challenge. Doing the kung fu might have been faster, but we don’t know. But it wouldn’t have been as much fun because we are not kung fu people. We don’t kung fu on a regular basis. (Laughs)

Q: Any thoughts of switching over in the Detour? With Tofino, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many teams go back and forth between challenges.

JS: I know. It was amazing. In Tofino, it was because the challenges were right beside each other, so it was a really easy thing to do. And you were seeing the teams because all the teams were pretty much together at that point. You could see the team and knowing where you were at in the Race and you could switch without even having to get a cab. That’s another thing about switching (in Hong Kong), was where is it? It could have been 20 minutes, a half-hour away from where we were.

And getting cabs in Hong Kong was extremely difficult. All of those things are going through your mind: how many teams are over there, now we are going to be at the back of that line? And then we did see Sukhi and Jinder one point running through the market. We did talk about it a little bit before, but when we saw them, we were like, ‘No, it’s on. We’ll just go and race with the two of them.’ We kind of knew it was down to the two of us, so we just gave it all we had and went for it.


Q: How has being on the Race affected your relationship?

JS: It has been nothing but incredible. It has been so much fun. Since the moment that we made our video and started applying and doing all the stages together to when they told us we were going to be on, we have come together like no other time in our lives. Of course, we got married and do all these things together, but this was really a different angle. A couple doesn’t do on a normal basis unless you are doing something like this. We just did so much fun stuff to prepare for the Race. We wouldn’t have done all those things. Nothing but amazing things came out of it for our relationship. We just love each other every day more and more.

Q: Did you talk about that before how deal with stressors?

JS: Definitely. But really, we communicate like crazy. We talk all the time. We have known each other since we were teenagers. We’ve worked together throughout our lives and we still work together. Of course we bicker and we fight about other things, but when we need to be together, we are together. We know we are way stronger together than at any moment if we start falling apart. That’s just not how we are. Some of the other teams push each other like that. That’s just not who we are and never was, so we weren’t too concerned about that.

 

Q: What kind of training did you do to prepare to be on the show?

JS: We did as much as possible. Like Laura said, we found out we were going to be on when we were in Nicaragua. So when we were there we tried to do surfing. We were running like crazy, running up and down dirt hills and paths. We did lots of yoga, lots of weight training. We’d never fileted or cut fish so we actually did fish stuff with Laura’s father a couple of nights. We went rock climbing. We did acro-yoga. That was really fun. We did a ton of stuff. We learned how to tie all these crazy knots, from my brother-in-law who is a fireman. We did everything we could have done.

We took dance lessons, which was really fun. I never would have taken a dance class, ever in my life. And it ended up being one of the funnest things we did. We pushed ourselves to do things that we wouldn’t have done. And we moved our couch away from our TV and we set up a gym in front of our TV. We forced ourselves. It was, ‘If we are watching TV, we are working out.’ But the couch went back as soon as we were off. ‘Let’s put that couch back.’ (Laughs)

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Ousted 'Amazing Race Canada' couple have no regrets

Caution: Being a fan of other reality shows may be hazardous to your standing on The Amazing Race Canada.

And apparently, Alvin Leung is no longer content just eliminating people from MasterChef Canada.

Tuesday saw the first-ever episode of The Amazing Race Canada set outside Canada – in Hong Kong (second home to 200,000 Canucks, if you’re looking for a hook).

And this week’s eliminated racers – married couple Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner – took a wrong turn on a detour, when they were given a choice between a Hong Kong “MasterChef Challenge,” featuring Demon Chef Alvin Leung, and a “Kung Fu Challenge.”

“We chose the MasterChef Challenge because we’re familiar with food,” Takahashi said. “I’m a food photographer. And the opportunity to meet Alvin, as fans of the show, just seemed more ‘Us.’”

As it turned out, being a fan of Alvin Leung is not necessarily a good thing. While every other team learned kung-fu moves, Takahashi and Skinner were given a complex shopping list for the Wan Chai Wet Market. And when they thought they had everything, they showed up with fresh chili peppers instead of the Sichuan peppercorns the Demon Chef had asked for.

“Livestock is kind of everywhere,” Skinner added in a phone conference Wednesday. “There’s thousands of people, there’s a language barrier. It’s absolutely nothing like going to a grocery store.”

“We chumped on that right away,” Takahaski said. “Ultimately if we had a chance to replay that leg of the race, we would consider both sides of the detour.”

In other words, thanks a lot, Alvin. Takahashi laughs and says, “Actually, we got to go to his Michelin restaurant (Bo Innovation), and it was so gorgeous. Not too many regrets, and who’s to say we would have been any good at kung fu?”

Certainly, not Rex Harrington. For the second week in a row, the National Ballet legend – teamed with his fiance Bob Hope – chose a physical challenge on the assumption that his dance skills gave him an edge. Last week, he discovered he didn’t have the balance to get on a surfboard. This week, he and Hope were the first to attempt the kung fu challenge, and one of the last to finish.

“I think that Rex’s story resonates with our story about the Market,” Takahashi said. “We chose it because of our experience and it wasn’t necessarily the best choice. It’s not necessarily what you bring to the table; it’s how fast you can pick it up and how fast you can move on.”

The food theme continued in the next challenge, when Skinner had to drink snake bile and eat snake soup. “It was definitely gross,” Skinner said. “It tasted like a shot of really crazy booze. Snake soup was not as bad as I imagined it would be. But just sitting in front of live snakes and eating a snake that I basically saw killed was pretty insane.”

Even after the Wet Market disaster, Takahashi and Skinner had a shot, in a footrace for with siblings Sukhi and Jinder Atwal. “And we all know how long-legged Sukhi and Jinder are,” Takahashi said.

With three straight wins, Olympic gold-medal hockey players Meghan Mikkelson and Natalie Spooner seem prohibitive favourites.

“They’re fierce competitors and incredibly smart and awesome girls. And they’re going to be really, really tough to take down,” Takahashi said.

“But they can be first and they can be last in the space of one episode.”

Source:http://www.torontosun.com/2014/07/23/ousted-amazing-race-canada-couple-have-no-regrets

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I'll miss these two, they were great.
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better; it's not" - The Lorax

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HEADING TO HONG KONG BOTH A DREAM AND A NIGHTMARE FOR LAURA AND JACKIE

Going to Asian food markets and gathering local ingredients is one of Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner’s favourite things to do while travelling, so it’s ironic that a similar challenge in Hong Kong contributed to their elimination on “The Amazing Race Canada.”
 
“We have the experience of going to the market and walking around, checking things out, so obviously it’s a whole different game when you’re in a race and you’re under a lot of pressure. You don’t realize how much the language barrier also comes into play,” says Jackie, a Toronto-based musician.
 
The Detour required them to gather a list of items from the market and return them to “MasterChef Canada” judge Alvin Leung at his restaurant, Bo Innovation.
 
While some ingredients were easy to find, others like a specific brand of maple syrup, were not.
 
“We were trying to think logically, trying to go to a bakery store or something like that and it just ended up being the craziness of the wet market in the middle of nowhere so any of our logic didn’t really work,” says Jackie.
 
Once the team finally found it and took all the ingredients to Chef Alvin, he told them they were missing dried schezwan peppercorns and had to head back to the market.
 
“We just had the wrong items, again with the language barrier . . . We asked quite a few people and it just gets to that point where you just trust people,” says Jackie.
 
Even though they found the ingredient and made it back to Bo Innovation quite quickly, Laura and Jackie had fallen behind and weren’t able to make up the time at the next two challenges. When they arrived at the Pit Stop at Kowloon Walled City Park, host Jon Montgomery confirmed their elimination.
 
But while the team wonders if they might have fared better at the Kung Fu Detour rather than the MasterChef one, the team has no regrets and say meeting Chef Alvin was a definite highlight.
 
“It was a beautiful restaurant so at the end of the day we chose something that we love to do and it might have bit us in the butt a bit but it was super fun,” says Jackie.
 
The team is also grateful they got to participate in the first ever international leg of “The Amazing Race Canada.”
 
“We had always hoped when we started this race that we were going to go international,” says Laura, who works in media development.
 
“We 100 per cent had an incredible time going to Hong Kong . . . as soon as we opened up that clue on the beach (in Tofino) and it said we were going to China we were like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ We had no idea, we completely unexpected it,” adds Jackie.
 
They both agree though that going international made the “Race” that much more difficult. 
 
“It was by far the hardest for sure,” says Jackie, explaining that most of the taxi drivers they found had no idea what they were saying or where they were supposed to go.
 
“The language barrier was huge.”
 
But despite the challenge, the couple, who got engaged in Vietnam and were married last August, say the experience of running the “Race” together was the best part.
 
“It brings your relationship to another level . . . It made us both just fall in love with each other a little bit more,” says Jackie.
 
The couple is also thrilled with the outpouring of support they’ve received during their time on the “Race.”
 
“People (who have) reached out, either just as fans of the show or people that have personally connected with our story or who we are, has really overwhelmed us,” says Laura.
 
“The amount of support of us being married . . . It’s just another incredible thing about this country,” adds Jackie. “It’s been absolutely incredible that lots of gay people have come out and talked to us and been on social media and saying we’re an inspiration for them. That was 100 per cent why we wanted to go on the show.”

Source:http://www.ctv.ca/TheAmazingRaceCanada/Articles/Season-Two/amazing_race_canada_S2_Laura_Jackie_elimination.aspx

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Amazing Race Canada: Laura and Jackie exit interview

Source:http://amazingracecanwithgordandwayne.weebly.com/gords-amazing-race-canada--more/amazing-race-canada-laura-and-jackie-exit-interview

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Re: TAR CANADA 2 Contestants - Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner (Married)
« Reply #15 on: August 28, 2014, 05:26:15 PM »
The Amazing Race Canada: Laura and Jackie
The hosts talk to Laura and Jackie, the latest competitors to be eliminated from the competition.

http://www.ctv.ca/TheAmazingRaceCanada/video.aspx?vid=404909&tag=301

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Re: TAR CANADA 2 Contestants - Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner (Married)
« Reply #16 on: September 14, 2014, 02:25:39 PM »
A Bittersweet Homecoming

The race has gone international, but unfortunately for Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner their journey on TARC has come to a halt in Hong Kong. It was a slip-up in the detour competition that had the power couple on a plane back home to Toronto.

Jackie and Laura chose the task that required them to find foods for chef, and “MasterChefCanada” judge, Alvin Leung’s, world-famous restaurant. Unfortunately, they mistook fresh chili peppers for Sichuan peppercorns and it cost them the game. Despite their elimination, the couple has remained positive. “We made three legs, and we cannot be prouder,” said Laura.

Both Laura and Jackie agreed that the race brought them out of their comfort zone and allowed them to try things they may never have had the chance to experience. If they got the opportunity to do it all over again they would weight their options before choosing which task to do. “Every second is important,” said Laura.

The couple has known each other for 16 years and is celebrating their second wedding anniversary. The race has been an incredible experience and has brought them closer together.

As Laura and Jackie readjust to their life in Toronto, the other racers’ are gearing up for the next leg which will take them to the gambling capital of the world, Macau, China. Tune in Tuesday at 9pm ET on CTV.

Source;http://www.marilyn.ca/Celebrities/segment/Daily/July2014/7_23_2014/TARCs2e3

There is a video as well!