One Hot and Exciting Race

I can already smell the million bucks waiting in the finish line of the race, but the three remaining teams must struggle through different tasks, tricky directions and grumpy taxi drivers.



But before that, I was quite happy with the outcome of the race and dude, it was the funniest episode that I’ve seen in the show!


Let’s start with Jaime and Cara. They all thought they were about to win the first place. If I’m not mistaken, their highest standing in this season was only second, only a few minutes from Margie and Luke. When they arrived on the mat and when Phil announced that they were the first team to arrive on the “pitstop”, both of them rejoiced, for just a couple of jiffies. I couldn’t forget their faces when they received another clue from Phil. They were deeply disappointed because they all thought that they have won a special prize for finishing this China leg first. Too bad girls, but I guess the experience from joining the race is the most important thing.

One by one, the three remaining teams (Margie and Luke, Jen and Kisha and Tammy and Victor) retrieved their clues from Phil.

Beijing is an amazing place. But if you’re stuck on the middle of the bustling streets of Beijing and armed with only the English language, then it’s going to be a disaster. Now that’s the primary predicament of Jaime and Cara especially on acquiring a taxi and/or asking directions from the locals.

Tiananmen Square was really breathtaking, apart from the bloody protest back in 1989.

Images courtesy of cbs.com

Now the four teams rode an electric bicycle and headed straight to their next location. They found a clue box and it was a detour. In this Detour, teams had to choose between Beijing Opera and Chinese Waiter. The latter requires teams to address the orders of the hungry Chinese customers in MANDARIN while the former needs teams to dress like a princess and a gentleman (accompanied with heavy makeup) and present it to the opera master.

Tammy and Victor opted for the Chinese orders due to their advantage in the language. The three remaining three teams chose to have a Chinese makeover. Tammy and Victor finished their detour task quickly and went straight to the U-Turn, and made a right decision for they’ve U-turned Jen and Keisha. Imagine having them as the opponent on the foot race, the Chinese team wouldn’t outran the six-footer black sisters. This made Margie and Luke and happy and was very thankful to Tammy and Victor critical decision.


While Jaime and Cara struggle for directions and finding a taxi driver, Jen and Kisha suffered in their U-turn. Writing down phonetically what they heard, the sisters didn’t fare very well in their first recitation to the chef. Fried chicken became “Monthly use Taiwanese Chicken” and Kisha’s pronunciation of vegetarian noodles turned it into “Good western heads lack fish.” After a few more tries, Kisha & Jen finally received the chef’s approval and served the dishes to the waiting patrons. I can’t help but to laugh so hard on to the silly translations. Good thing, the chef wasn’t insulted by it. Lol.


The last task, which is the roadblock, needs only one member of the team to accomplish the task, and if you’re hungry, it’s going to be a perfect time to relish weird and alien Chinese delicacies – deep fried grasshoppers, starfishes, maggots and scorpions. It may taste like deep fried potatoes, but Westerners may find these to be weird. Even the Chinese team freaked out with the exotic street foods. Victor didn’t mind the food at all – gobbled the crunchy scorpions and went straight to the pit stop, the famous Bird’s Nest (Beijing National Stadium), used to be a stadium during the 2008 Summer Olympics and the penultimate and the tenth Pit Stop of the race. Tammy and Victor finished first and won a trip for two to Galapagos Island.


Meanwhile, Margie and Luke came in second place. The two remaining teams are still in the Chinese exotic food task and it was really a close fight. Because Jen drank four bottles of water, she really had to pee. So upon arriving in the pit stop, they first went to the porta-potty, wasting valuable amount of time. After a while, Jaime and Cara arrived on the pit stop and finished third, leaving the black sisters to be the last team to be eliminated on the race.


Lesson learned: Do not pee if you haven’t checked in to the pit stop.

And next week, I can’t wait for the season finale. Who will win the million dollars?!



The finish line of this race will be on Maui, Hawaii. I’m so excited!!! :)