KK City Tourism Treasure Hunt 2009

Results (Max score: 140 pts):

1. Chai Koh Khai, Margaret Sha, Chong Voon Kiat, Claire Chin (136)
2. Cornelius Koh, Euphemia Thien, Dennis Koh, Edward Baki (126)
3. Onalia Kong, Allister Kong, Victoria Kong, Benjamin Liew (124)
4. Shirley Lim, Dr Liaw Yun Haw, Mary Lokupi, Ellen Yee (122)
5. Masri Khan, Ag Ahmad, Ag Sarpuddin, Zuriah Hanafiah (122)
6. Johan Salul, Dr Ben Lau, Sallehuddin Yusof, Kheirul Nazib (122)
7. Suzanne Majani, Jessie Ligayus, Adoree Malingang, Anna Yong (121)
8. Benedict Bisoni, Mark Martin, Morris Bisoni (121)
9. Bernard Liew, Alvin Wong, Christine Netto, Audrey Chin (118)
10. Donald Stephens, Nabil Hyder, Laura Lidi Basinau, Benidect Basinau (116)


Oh what a hunt! Today was very exhausting, confusing and also physically demanding too. Tasks, challenges and lots of walk-hunts and running too. And yes, as for my team, we failed to find a treasure which was solved within the first few minutes after the flag-off. Quite a bit to report.

Sabahan hunters were again unable to prevent our RM5,000.00 from drifting away to the West. Hunters "R" Us, an elite team from KL won again this year (having won it 2 years ago). One of their team members fell ill recently, and since he's still recovering, they had to take onboard a last-minute replacement. That replacement's virtually the best hunter in Malaysia so far, Claire Chin. Although she had only been hunting about 2 - 3 years, she's won quite a number of hunts in KL. She is most certainly a hunter to be reckoned with (Hint: TOS, you know what to do with your Masters List).

As mentioned, our local hunters had to witness the top prize leaving our shores yet again. We tried so hard but to no avail. In spite of doing well in the challenges—a rarity in itself as far as my team is concerned—our time keeper made a terrible blunder of missing the time window for a task. It was merely to get a stamp from Terminal 2, KKIA. On top of that, as I said, we failed to find a treasure which was easily solved. What should have been a grand RM5,000.00 winning purse for my team, Megapawns, ended up with a second place of RM3,000 instead. Still, it's our best achievement so far. We started the hunt hoping to get within the top 10 winners, so we're not complaining. However, knowing that we could've won this hunt but for stupid mistakes is very painful!

This year my team made a very important adjustment. I've arranged for Edward to take the wheels and put Dennis in the back seat together with me as a passenger. It proved to be a winning formula. Mia retained her position as the front seat passenger. Apart from being the driver, Edward was assigned the role of the time keeper. On the whole, I thought he did a good job, except for a careless mistake of missing the time window for the tasks in Leg 1.

As usual, 50% of the total score (140 points) came from the numerous challenges and tasks; and the remaining 50% came from the questions and treasures. However, it was to be found later that the CoC fell short of one hunt question, resulting in the majority score leaning towards the challenges and tasks.

I must say that I still don't like the challenges/games. However, they're not as stupid as in previous years. In the past we have had the likes of coconut bowling and posing for photo session, of which points were awarded based on "creativity". The weightage of this so-called "creativity" was a whopping 30 points against the route questions of 3 points each!

Games have always been a nightmare to my team. We've never been any good at them. But this year, we made history by achieving full score for all the four challenges. Challenge 1 was held at Taman Awam in Likas beach. 3 persons from each team had to work together to transfer water from one bottle to another. On one side was a bottle containing 600ml water; on the other side an empty bottle of about 500ml. The water from the 600ml bottle was poured into the hands which were formed into something of a bowl. That's then brought to the other side where another person waited with the empty bottle. The water's then poured into that empty bottle. Points were awarded based on the amount of water transferred to the empty bottle at the end of 90 seconds.

Challenge 2 was mainly a multiple-choice question type. It was held in KDCA along Jalan Penampang. Teams were given a piece of paper with pictures of kampong houses in it. Below those pictures were numerous names, 5 of which matched 5 of those houses in the pictures above. Some of those pictures where red herrings and meant to confuse the hunters. Teams then had to walk around the compound where the actual houses were built (for display) and match them to those in the pictures. The only twist was that each team was given no more than 10 minutes to complete the task. Although it may sound easy, in reality it wasn't that easy after all. My team completed the task within the allocated 10 minutes, but many strong teams fell victims to the confusions. What's amazing was the fact that once teams missed the 10-minute limit—even by one second—the penalty would be half of whatever points they earned from the task. So 10 points can become 5 points because of one miserable second! I'm OK with whatever rules the organizer deemed fit. In fact, if they wanted it to be some kind of sudden-death challenge, it's totally up to them. But to do so, they must allocate a digital timer to be fair; and not subject teams to a queue when they come back to submit their respective answers. Remember, every single second counted!

Challenge 3 was the point where I almost gave up. We reached the adidas outlet in 1Borneo. We were given 5 multiple-choice questions relating to the products found in the shop. The first two were that of running shoes; the third of another kind of shoes; fourth and fifth were of women's wear and apparels. But you should have seen the number of hunters in the shop and the commotion that ensued. With precious time ticking away, it was total havoc! And this was where luck was on our side. It happened that I'm fairly familiar with adidas shoes. Some of my loyal readers would know that I bought adidas shoes for the marathons I've joined. So upon reading the clues, I immediately narrowed down my scope of search to the adizero on the top shelf. I bought 2 pairs of the adizeros just a few months ago. One down, 4 to go. I remembered while I was selecting to buy the adizeros, I was also considering the Supernova, though I only bought the former in the end. But when I read something about "explosion" in the clue, I immediate focused my attention to the Supernova. Two down, 3 to go. By then Mia had found the answers for the fourth and fifth questions. Then Edward arrived and was able to answer the third question. Again perfect score for this challenge.

While Mia and I were busy on Challenge 3, Dennis and Edward were dealing with Challenge 4. We were running short on time, and we had no choice but to split our team to tackle these 2 challenges. It turned out that the other Challenge was about identifying specific names of festivals in Sabah. Participants had to find these names from a long list, all within 90 seconds, something which I thought was quite ridiculous. But again luck was on our side—my brother, Dennis, was a tour guide some years ago, and he's quite well-versed with the festivals in Sabah. So we were again able to get the full score for this challenge.

As for the questions, I found they're set quite easy this year. During the hunt, I had the impression that we were already out of contention when I realised that we dropped the stamp at the airport, because I thought the other teams would quite easily answer most, if not all, of the questions. And then as if that's not bad enough, we failed to find the forsaken 105g Lexus crackers despite stopping by so many shops and supermarkets to look for it.

For a brief moment, I went through a bout of self-pity like a sore loser—I raised my voice and started blaming Edward, our official time keeper for missing the time window for the airport stamp. Y'know, sometimes that can happen no matter how many times you remind yourselves not to do so during a hunt. But the good thing was that I was able to quickly realise that I was killing the fun part of the outing and was making things even worse. I was therefore able to come back to my usual calm attitude and focused on the remaining parts of the hunt.

By the time we reached the finish control, I was fairly convinced that we were already out of contention for the prizes. But I was determined not to be a jerk, and remained true to my role as the team leader. This was a team effort and I had to support the entire team. Then when the winner for the 20th position was announced, we realised that we were within the top 20 teams after all. What a relief. And then soon after that, more surprises when we realised that we were within the top 15. The excitement mounting... Then top 10... then when the 5th-position winner was announced, we began to get worried again. Suddenly we started to doubt our own calculations. Could it be that we calculated wrong somehow? Surely it's impossible that we could be a podium finisher; not with such a mediocre performance? When we were finally announced as the runners-up, we were ecstatic.

A hard day working from the wee hours of the morning, running through the city on foot (because of the traffic jams) to collect stamps from numerous stations; more runnings at the Petagas memorial and the zoo; hunting in the rain on foot at 1Borneo... the anxiety and stress of time management; mental torture of cracking clues and observation skills tested to the extreme...I think you can understand why the recognition as the runners-up and RM3,000 prize money were so sweet.

We were, however, unable to beat Hunters "R" Us. But who knows, maybe another day, another hunt... bring it on!