Calvin’s Hub

Well, congrats to the winners, Adrian & Collin for winning the Amazing Race Asia 2. I can say that I’m not that disappointed at Marc & Rovilson since Team Singapore really earned the 100,000 dollars. Second place goes to Pam and Vanessa and lastly, Marc & Rovilson. At least, you’ve won most of the first place prizes throughout the race.

It was a great race for Team Philippines until the last part where Team Singapore really performed well under pressure.

Here’s how the race went

The first task is for the teams to drive themselves to a museum in the city of Cape Town. In the museum is a Sony Vaio laptop where the teams must figure out the password which is one of the streets in Cape Town.

Marc & Rovilson left at around 5:10 AM and encountered no traffic going there. 15 minutes later, Team Singapore left the pit stop followed by Pam & Van but both teams were caught in the traffic. Good for the Pinoys.

Team Philippines had no problem solving the password and by the time they left the museum to go to the next task, the other teams are just arriving.

Detour

Teams must then choose between finding 3 marked pebbles in a room full of pebbles and gemstones or assembling a working toy radio.

Marc & Rovilson chose to find the pebbles but after a few minutes, they gave up and chose to assemble the radio instead.

Adrian & Collin have just finished guessing the password and they chose to do the pebble task as well. After a short while, Pam & Van finished the task and went to do the radio assembly thing just as Marc & Rovilson left the building onto the next task.

Goallll!!!!

In the next task, teams must drive into a soccer field where they need to score 3 goals (not individually) against a goalkeeper from the penalty line. Marc & Rovilson had troubles scoring at first but eventually finished the task still ahead of the others.

By the time they left the soccer field, Adrian & Collin are just arriving after completing the pebble task. Fortunately for Team Philippines, Adrian & Collin are much worse soccer players than them. Anyhow, they managed to score three goals before Pam & Van arrived.

Quad Bikes & Sand Dunes

Teams must then drive to a sand dune and drive quad bikes (ATV Quadcycles) in search of their next clue. This is a poorly designed task in my opinion.

Here’s how the task works there are 18 face down flower pots scattered all over the sand dune marked by race flags. Only 1 pot contains the clues while the other pots have an hourglass underneath. When they open a pot containing an hourglass, they must turn it upside down and wait for the timer to finish before continuing.

The problem here is that the first team will have to go through the first few hourglass and by the time the other team arrives, they can skip those and go to the next flower pot ahead of the first team. They just have to read the tire tracks to check if the first team went there and waited.

That’s what Adrian & Collin did so Marc & Rovilson came up with a plan. When they finally reached the pot where the clues are located, they sat and waited for awhile pretending that they don’t have the clue yet. When Adrian & Collin saw them, they continued on to the next pot.

That trick bought Marc & Rovilson some time to go ahead of Adrian & Collin whom after a short while realized that the Pinoys already found the clue.

Read the clues carefully!!!

After the sand dunes, teams must drive at the edge of Cape Town and ride a tram going up then make their way to the lighthouse on foot. When they see the lighthouse keeper, they must guess which Asian country they will go to next.

Marc & Rovilson messed up here. Instead of riding a tram, they went up and down cliffs and stairs in search of the lighthouse keeper. By the time they realized their mistake, Adrian & Collin already got the clue from the lighthouse keeper and on their way to the next task.

Next Destination: Singapore

Teams must then fly to Singapore and ride a taxi to Raffles Square. Home advantage for Adrian & Collin at the end of the race.

Anyway, all teams managed to board the same plane to Singapore so it was a very tight race all over again. When they landed in Singapore, Marc & Rovilson were the first ones to board a taxi, followed closely by Adrian & Collin then Pam & Van.

Marc & Rovilson arrived at Raffles Square first and asked their driver to wait for them. After they got the clue, they hopped back in their taxi to go to Sentosa for their next task.

Adrian & Collin however, forgot to tell their driver to wait while they get their clue so Pam & Van were able to get pass them while they are waiting for another cab.

The usual Roadblock at the end of the Race

The next task is the usual Roadblock where a team member must arrange the flags of the countries they visited during the race in the correct order.

Downfall of Team Philippines

Rovilson was the one who did this task while Marc waited by the side clearly in agony every time he sees his partner choose the wrong flag or place the flag in the wrong order. Marc kept telling himself that he should be the one doing this.

Pam & Van finally arrived after a few minutes and Vanessa was the one who performed the task. After a few more minutes, the Singaporeans arrived and Adrian (the deaf one) wasted no time with the task.

Marc asked Collin how good Adrian is with flags. Collin replied, “He’s very good at them.”

And he was right, Adrian chose the flags that they’ve been to and placed them in the correct order without missing a beat. They quickly finished the roadblock and was on their way to the next task which is the race to the finish.

After a short while, Pam & Van also finished the task then finally, Rovilson got the answers correctly. Oh well. Crash and burned just because of the last and important task.

That’s it. It all boiled down to who can think clearly under pressure and has knowledge of their flags. Team Singapore chose the right person to do the task and I have to give credit on the excellent work by Adrian. Can’t say that they won because its their home turf, but I’m also happy for them winning it in their country.

Congrats again to Adrian & Collin!

To Marc & Rovilson

Congrats also to you guys for showing the world a very formidable Amazing Race team. I think you’re the only team in the whole Amazing Race series who were able to reach the pit stop first 70% of the time.

I hope they create an Amazing Race Asia All-Star so we can watch you and your funny antics again. You guys are the most entertaining and funniest team I’ve seen in any Amazing Race shows. Well done!!

Kudos to Pamela and Vanessa as well! You guys are very competitive and finished well!

Oh well that’s the end of The Amazing Race Asia 2, what else can I blog next time?

You might also be interested in:

• The Amazing Race Asia 2 – Episode 7
• The Amazing Race Asia 2 – Episode 11
• The Amazing Race Asia 2 – Episode 10
• The Amazing Race Asia 2 – Episode 12

Filed under: Amazing Race Asia