
Yesterday, SY (my team partner) and I arrived early @1U. We walked around so that we can be sure that we were ready for the challenge. We registered at one of the booth, got our tshirts and a gel (by one of the sponsors) and we were asked to style our hair. No prizes for the best hairdo though. Right after we had changed into our t-shirts, we went back to the booth and sealed all our stuff (wallets, handphones, etc).
The Amazing Mall Challenge (AMC) started slightly later than the schedule which was supposed to be at 1 p.m. sharp. During the briefing, each team was given an envelop containing three checkpoint (CP) clues inside. We were told that we can do the first three CPs at random but at CP4 onwards until CP13, we need to perform the tasks in sequence.So we read our clues and off we went!



Then we decided to go to the lower ground floor and we were lucky to see other teams at Movie Magic! So we knew we were at CP3. The marshall was standing way inside the store and we saw everyone looking at Nelly Furtado's poster. We went to the marshall and read our task. We were asked to find a highlighted letter. They did not specify any particular poster or dvd but since everyone was looking at the poster, we looked out for the "highlighted letter" on the poster. Straight away we saw the letter "A" which was highlighted with a red-coloured tape. It was amazing because there were other teams who can't see it. Since it was a tight challenge at the beginning of this stage, we decided to only help Azlan's team (he was the husband of SY's colleague). Then we proceed to CP1, a golf shop which was a few shops away. We were required to perform golf putting and hit a ball into the hole each. It was an easy task. So now we needed to proceed to find CP2.
Almost all teams were clueless and struggled to find CP2. We went to Celebrity Fitness because we thought it could be the right place as the clue said "..play among the stars". There were marshalls there but turned out that it was CP4. We walked to the escalator and we were lucky enough to see a team and a couple of marshalls at a shop that sells travelling bags. We quickly dashed to the shop and perform our task which was to find an AXN tag. At the back of the tag, there's a clue saying "Superstar". We knew our CP4 was at Celebrity Fitness.

CP5: On the baseball, there was the word "Hitachi" and a web address "www.hit.com.my". There was an electrical shop nearby and we tried our luck there. Since there were no marshalls around, we knew we were at the wrong place. So we decided to go to Starbucks or the nearest computer shop to borrow a computer to check out the website. We went to a computer shop and the owner was kind enough to let us use one of their laptops. We were surprised to find out that there's a batting cage at the rooftop of 1 Utama! Newly opened in mid 2006, it is the first automated batting cage in Malaysia. We headed to the rooftop and we saw a few teams there. We were required to hit 6 balls. After a few tries, we managed to complete the task and head on for the next CP.

CP7: The clue for CP7 was easy to understand. It said something like "Tarzan's hometown" and we knew it was at the Rainforest. We were asked to get 2 members of the public to drink 2 bottles of mineral water. We went to the nearby restaurant and get two brothers (many thanks to Nicholas and his little brother) to perform the task. Once completed, the marshall told us that our team had to be separated; one of us will perform an extreme challenge and two other tasks while another team member had to go to Berjaya Times Square. So we decided that SY stayed in 1U and I went to Times Square.





CP10: At first, SY thought that CP10 couldn't be the rainforest because she had already been there in our previous task. However, she followed her instinct and went there anyway. At the rainforest, she had to perform a task whereby she had to transport 5 eggs from the fourth floor onto the ground using a string. She had to wait for some time because only two teams were allowed to perform the task at a time. They had to transport the eggs one by one, touching the ground without breaking it. SY broke one egg and she had to eat an egg which turned out to be a half boiled egg (supposed to be hard-boiled).
CP 11: I was back @1U and saw a few teams solving jigsaw puzzles. SY was nowhere to be seen. So I had to wait for her. I chatted with other teams and found out that there were only 7 bikers during the entire race. We found out that there was one particular team who had to wait for 1 hour for her biker to bring her to Times Square. We also knew that the team who won was from the Explorace Challenge (shown on TV3). SY finally arrived and in a couple of minutes we completed the task and moved on the the next CP.
CP12: We only had about two minutes to solve this clue. We tried a few places including Travelmart. However, the bell was rang and time was up. We finally knew that CP12 was at Kluang Station. We were just one CP away from the finishing line but we had tried our best.

We went back to the finishing line. My Sis and our friend, CC, were there waiting for us. We didn't really know what was our position or how well we performed. I think only the first three places matters. After all, this was just a fun race. After the prize presentation, we had a buffet dinner. We said goodbye to some of the teams before knocked off at about 8 p.m. We brought home a goodies bag and a certificate of participation each.
SY and I really had a splendid time meeting new people and doing things that we never or seldom do before. It was our first experience participating in such race and we are looking forward to more competition like this in the future.