I was scheduled to depart for KL at 12:30pm on Sunday. But the flight was delayed till 2:30pm. I was stuck at the airport and spent most of my time doing crossword puzzles. Upon reaching the LCCT-KL, I took a bus to KL Sentral Station, and then proceeded on the LRT to Kelana Jaya where my friend, KK Chai was already waiting for me.
We had a glorious dinner comprising crabs and fried rice at Fatty Crabs. I was told that it’s a very famous restaurant and I could see that it’s not an exaggeration because there were quite a number of people queuing outside (did someone say that we’re going through an economic crisis?).
It was difficult to talk during dinner as the next table was occupied by a loud company; I mean really loud. Apparently, it was a Japanese group. A fair number of empty beer bottles and red faces—and the result was a bunch of guys laughing annoyingly loud and non-stop like the hyenas.
Due to the last-minute arrangement, I did not bother to book a hotel room, and opted to put up with the Chais upon their kind offer. The next morning, we had a light breakfast before leaving for the start venue of the hunt. On the way there, we went round to fetch Vincent at his house.
It was drizzling when we arrived at the start venue and there were already many teams there. A short briefing by Lawrence and then we were flagged off at around 8:30am. However, we were deemed to have been flagged off at 9:00am.
I found the hunt much tougher than then Mensa held 2 weeks ago. We immediately stumbled on the first 3 questions, and we had to turn back before finally finding the answers. But we were still stuck with the second question—and that proved to be the case until the end of the hunt!
I’m so glad that I took the trouble to make this hunt, as I enjoyed the challenge very much. However, I feel that I did not contribute very much to the team. Hunters “R” Us is a very strong team, and they probably would have performed equally well without me in the car! But I flatter myself with the thought that I contributed in very small ways here and there—to sort of fill up the gaps, if you know what I mean. I also think that we would’ve been able to perform better had Vincent been able to hunt with us the whole time. But he had to leave us for a good 90 minutes or so for an appointment he couldn’t escape from. For tough hunts like this, lacking a single member can have devastating effect.
When Vincent finally rejoined us, we tried to do a bit of catching up, and I think we achieved that to a certain extent. However, it was obviously not good enough as we were already in serious time deficit by then. We had to rush through the last sectors and in the haste, Chai went into a wrong sector, thus resulting in the loss of even more precious time. In the end Vincent and I were dropped off to cover the Jln Kilang stretch on foot—a very long stretch to find a single answer to one of the questions while the Chais rushed to the finish control. It must have been all in my mind, but I felt like time was ticking away by the minutes rather than by the seconds.
While walking, I bumped into some familiar faces. Amongst others, I saw Weng Ngai, Teck Koon and even Claire. The latter had apparently held her bladder for almost 5 hours by then. Claire dear, that's not exactly a recommended strategy to play the game. But the next time we meet again, I'll remind you to kill me for bringing this up here (smile). Margaret, if you’re reading this, I hate to break it to you, but contrary to what you said in the car that night after dinner, treasure hunting might not be a very healthy activity after all, huh?
Anyway, after covering the entire stretch of Jln Kilang, I finally spotted the answer: DALAMAS ENTERPRISE SDN. BHD. The excitement mounted and I quickly made a call to Margaret. Unfortunately, by then she had already submitted our answers. Again another mistake on our part. If I had been dropped off on the right end of Jln Kilang, I would’ve found DALAMAS in good time for an extra 3 points. But, y’know, it’s all in the game!
As usual, I will discuss some of the interesting questions in separate posts, but I’d like to mention here that it is very rare that I have difficulties in finding inaccuracies in hunt questions. Looking at the questions on the whole, I must say that I am very impressed; and I would have been proud to have set some of those questions myself exactly the same way too!
I hope the 3 CoCs who worked together to make this hunt possible would team up again somehow to conjure up another awe-inspiring hunt like this. If I am to vote for a possible Major for a treasure hunt, I would without any doubt vote for this one!
Well, in the end we failed in 4 questions out of 28; and we got fourth. It did not matter—I enjoyed the hunt anyway.
I would gladly come again if there is another like this one. But, folks, is it so terribly wrong to confirm the hunt a little earlier, hmmm? There’s a big hole in my pocket right now. A big chunk of my lunch allowance had gone through that hole to AirAsia. And it’s just so damn painful to see those badges on the stewardesses’ uniforms: “SAY NO TO FUEL SURCHARGE”. Yeah right—I still had to pay RM1,123!
We had a glorious dinner comprising crabs and fried rice at Fatty Crabs. I was told that it’s a very famous restaurant and I could see that it’s not an exaggeration because there were quite a number of people queuing outside (did someone say that we’re going through an economic crisis?).
It was difficult to talk during dinner as the next table was occupied by a loud company; I mean really loud. Apparently, it was a Japanese group. A fair number of empty beer bottles and red faces—and the result was a bunch of guys laughing annoyingly loud and non-stop like the hyenas.
Due to the last-minute arrangement, I did not bother to book a hotel room, and opted to put up with the Chais upon their kind offer. The next morning, we had a light breakfast before leaving for the start venue of the hunt. On the way there, we went round to fetch Vincent at his house.
It was drizzling when we arrived at the start venue and there were already many teams there. A short briefing by Lawrence and then we were flagged off at around 8:30am. However, we were deemed to have been flagged off at 9:00am.
I found the hunt much tougher than then Mensa held 2 weeks ago. We immediately stumbled on the first 3 questions, and we had to turn back before finally finding the answers. But we were still stuck with the second question—and that proved to be the case until the end of the hunt!
I’m so glad that I took the trouble to make this hunt, as I enjoyed the challenge very much. However, I feel that I did not contribute very much to the team. Hunters “R” Us is a very strong team, and they probably would have performed equally well without me in the car! But I flatter myself with the thought that I contributed in very small ways here and there—to sort of fill up the gaps, if you know what I mean. I also think that we would’ve been able to perform better had Vincent been able to hunt with us the whole time. But he had to leave us for a good 90 minutes or so for an appointment he couldn’t escape from. For tough hunts like this, lacking a single member can have devastating effect.
When Vincent finally rejoined us, we tried to do a bit of catching up, and I think we achieved that to a certain extent. However, it was obviously not good enough as we were already in serious time deficit by then. We had to rush through the last sectors and in the haste, Chai went into a wrong sector, thus resulting in the loss of even more precious time. In the end Vincent and I were dropped off to cover the Jln Kilang stretch on foot—a very long stretch to find a single answer to one of the questions while the Chais rushed to the finish control. It must have been all in my mind, but I felt like time was ticking away by the minutes rather than by the seconds.
While walking, I bumped into some familiar faces. Amongst others, I saw Weng Ngai, Teck Koon and even Claire. The latter had apparently held her bladder for almost 5 hours by then. Claire dear, that's not exactly a recommended strategy to play the game. But the next time we meet again, I'll remind you to kill me for bringing this up here (smile). Margaret, if you’re reading this, I hate to break it to you, but contrary to what you said in the car that night after dinner, treasure hunting might not be a very healthy activity after all, huh?
Anyway, after covering the entire stretch of Jln Kilang, I finally spotted the answer: DALAMAS ENTERPRISE SDN. BHD. The excitement mounted and I quickly made a call to Margaret. Unfortunately, by then she had already submitted our answers. Again another mistake on our part. If I had been dropped off on the right end of Jln Kilang, I would’ve found DALAMAS in good time for an extra 3 points. But, y’know, it’s all in the game!
As usual, I will discuss some of the interesting questions in separate posts, but I’d like to mention here that it is very rare that I have difficulties in finding inaccuracies in hunt questions. Looking at the questions on the whole, I must say that I am very impressed; and I would have been proud to have set some of those questions myself exactly the same way too!
I hope the 3 CoCs who worked together to make this hunt possible would team up again somehow to conjure up another awe-inspiring hunt like this. If I am to vote for a possible Major for a treasure hunt, I would without any doubt vote for this one!
Well, in the end we failed in 4 questions out of 28; and we got fourth. It did not matter—I enjoyed the hunt anyway.
I would gladly come again if there is another like this one. But, folks, is it so terribly wrong to confirm the hunt a little earlier, hmmm? There’s a big hole in my pocket right now. A big chunk of my lunch allowance had gone through that hole to AirAsia. And it’s just so damn painful to see those badges on the stewardesses’ uniforms: “SAY NO TO FUEL SURCHARGE”. Yeah right—I still had to pay RM1,123!
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