nokia N95 wireless adventure

Probably you have heard of Nokia N95 Wireless Adventure on TV recently. It's like a treasure hunt ala the Amazing Race with a twist.

Through the Nokia N95, your team which comprise of you, your team mate, a local celebrity and a media dude will work through a given list of 8 clues over the course of 2 days! The clues will lead you to different locations with specific tasks to carry out.

During the course of carrying out the tasks, you will navigate the city (using Nokia N95) and capture specific urban elements that make it unique. Interesting, right?

In the end you will unearth the Soul of the City (which I do not know what it is) as well as to unveil the grad prize which is a jeng jeng jeng... all paid expenses to Europe and Nokia N95!

I think there will be interviews for selected participants. I've already submitted my application last night. Just try my luck lar. Anyone interested to join too? Let me know. Maybe we can form an alliance later if we get selected.

winning a desktop PC @ the Microsoft Vista launch

Now I feel really bad for complaining about the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt for not providing better Hunt Kit in my previous post.

Why? Because today I received not only extra Microsoft Vista freebies (pen, notepads, paper clips, etc) but also a new HP Desktop PC preloaded with Window Vista for winning the 1st prize in the Windows Movie Maker contest.

I did not save up the 90 sec clip I submitted last night though. My clip is about Visit Malaysia Year 2007 with a little bit sense of humour by using the limited number of photos available in the PC available at the foyer of Low Yat Plaza.

When the Microsoft people called me on my mobile asking me to come over to the stage @ about 5 p.m. today, I was in PJ. Luckily my friends were there to be my representative.

Thank you to my friends (Shuh Yong, Chia Chia, Sok Ei, Jess and Dr Ho), Bro and Sis for taking part with me in the hunt. And especially thank you to my good friend Shuh Yong for noticing the contest and persuaded me to join. Shuh Yong, Jess and Chia Chia also helped me to pick up my prizes today. Love you guys! Congratulations to Dr Ho for winning the 3rd place in the Windows Movie Maker contest as well! Let's celebrate this week!

In the end, special thanks to Microsoft and HP for the prizes! Coincidentally, I'll be collecting the desktop PC on my birthday.

Amazing Vista Walk Hunt

It was quite a happening Microsoft Vista launch at Low Yat Plaza today. My friends, Sis, Bro and I were there to participate in the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt.

However, the registration sucked. There were too many people (about 675 participants altogether!) and very unsystematic. The so-called Hunt Kit was even worse. Well, perhaps my expectation was high. I expect more than just a can of carbonated drink, a wafer bar, a mineral water, a brochure and an ugly sissy black coloured Window Vista bag. Yep, not even a pen or note pad. I know this Walk Hunt is free, but this is the biggest launch by Microsoft, the richest company in the world. Not to mentioned there were only 8 winning teams out of 188 teams. With so many so-called big sponsors like Maxis, Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, Acer, etc, they could only offer so few prizes and freebies. I joined a free AXN mall challenge before and the sponsor (Brylcreem) was so generous we had lots of freebies apart from so many free games like rock climbing, baseball, terror ride, etc.

Despite the lack of system by Time Out Solutions during the briefing, the kedekut-ness of Microsoft and the simplicity (in another word, no uuumph) of the hunt (which only took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete and the questions are less challenging), my teams enjoyed ourselves very much. We enjoyed the fact that we were able to participate together in two teams. We did so much better this time eventhough half of us are newbies. It would be impossible to answer all questions with only one team going from sector to sector.

Although majority of the participants are young people, in their teens or early 20s, the winners are mostly 'old people' (read: pro hunters) with familiar faces like The Lucky Ones and Hunters 'R' Us who won in every single hunt. I have great respect for them and I wish I knew their strategies and how long they took to be where they are now. How do they do it?

After the race, a couple of my team members and I joined the Microsoft Vista Movie Maker contest. The results will be out tomorrow at 5 p.m. Anyway, I'm pretty intimidated by the huge crowd. So I'm not going back to Low Yat Plaza tomorrow.

Amazing Vista Walk Hunt

The people at Crystal Edge did a very good job in sending out reminders to participants of the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt. Not only I received a reminder email but each of my team members actually received a double text messages to remind us about the event on Saturday.

I actually split up my existing hunter friends so that we can have a better strategy with two teams. We sucked in the previous hunts. We don't have expectation to win but just to gain some experience, have more right rather than wrong answers and most of all, hoping for some good freebies to take home with (dear organizer, you know what to do!).

My team no is lucky 23, comprising my Sis, Bro, a friend and of course, yours truly. So, anyone of you joining the hunt, see you guys there.

flora hunt: mission completed

It was a tiring day because I went on without sleep since yesterday. I did not sleep after came back from Genting. Instead I stayed awake to update my blog and do some reading on anagrams and cryptograms.

My team and I reached Putrajaya at about 7 a.m. Almost more than half of the cars were already there. There were about 164 cars altogether. During the briefing, we were quite happy because the first half of the destinations were places that we knew well; Shah Alam and SS2, Petaling Jaya. After the midpoint, we were asked to go to Eye On Malaysia, in Taman Tasik Titiwangsa to collect new sheet of questions and accomplished a mission (which involved in answering questions regarding Eye On Malaysia). Then we had to proceed to Pandan Indah (which was a problem because all of us weren't sure where Pandan Indah was) and back to Putrajaya.

My team still couldn't answer most of the questions. We're sucked in anagrams! After two hunts, now my team mates want to quit. I'll probably have to find new team mates in the future because I'm not quitting. I think I just need to do more research and probably involved myself in more hunts to train up my skills.

Example of question for treasure:

Dalam bas ada bilik kecemasan kata orang putih,
Pastikan bukan V6 tapi V1000g, barulah sahih,
Harta karun ini adalah untuk kebajikan,
Yang betul, barulah markah akan diberikan,
Jenama melambangkan percintaan Shah Jehan,
Yang itu sahaja kami inginkan.

Answer: Beras berjenama Taj Mahal (5kg)

an eventful weekend

I am supposed to be in bed right now. But it seems that I can't. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. In fact the whole weekend is going to be very busy.

My treasure hunt team mates (SYong, CC and SE) decided that we are going for breakfast as early as 7.30 am before we head to Putrajaya for Flora Hunt briefing. We want to go earlier this time because we do not want to end up with oversized t-shirts like the last time. Besides it's holiday and we wanna reach there early to spend some time to explore Putrajaya especially the Botanical Garden, which we believed could be one of the places to go in the Flora Hunt this Sunday.

Later in the evening, our team (except for SE who will not be joining but instead her new housemate, Jess, a new friend of mine will be taking her place) are going to Genting to watch Astro Wah Lai Toi Drama Awards. I've been asking my Sis for the tickets for the last two years. Finally she got it from her colleague in Wah Lai Toi. Based on the award shows in the previous years, I do not have high expectation for this year's event. However, I'm hoping to see some of my favourite TVB stars like Kevin Cheng, Raymond Lam, Moses Chan, Myolie Wu and Bernice Liu. I kinda followed a lot of TVB series in 2006. I've asked CC and Jess to be ready to snap some photos of the TVB stars at the red carpet while Syong and I will chup the seats for them.

lost in (Visit) Malaysia 2007

Apart from the grand launch of the Eye on Malaysia in conjunction with Visit Malaysia 2007 (VM 2007) and the list of happening events throughout the year, I don't really see any efforts being put on promotion and advertisement. So, why do I say this?

I am very keen about VM2007. So my friends and I decided to take part in Flora Hunt which is going to be held this Sunday at Putrajaya. This is going to be the second time my team taking part in such activity. The last time, we were quite disappointed with the Lexis Nexis treasure hunt organized by Time Out Solutions. Perhaps we were inexperienced and had high hopes after taking part in the Amazing Mall Challenge. So, this time, we are giving ourselves another try, especially since it's a good way to be part of the celebration.

So, last nite my team member, SYong and I thought we better get some brochures on VM2007 and start doing some preparation to understand more about the event and places to go in Putrajaya, Klang Valley and Selangor.

Our first stop was KL Sentral since KLIA is too far away. We thought we are going to get some brochures at the departure hall. To our disappointment, there is not a single brochure or even VM2007 buntings to be found. Then, we tried again at the entrance near the taxi stand. Well, this time, at least we found a brochure which is not very helpful anyway.

We proceed to Hilton KL which is just right in front of KL Sentral. They were very helpful and provided us with maps and brochures on places to visit.

We thought of going to Cititel Mid Valley to see if we can find extra brochures and again to our disappointment, the concierge doesn't give us anything except a brochure about Zoo Negara in Arabic!

Then we came back to PJ Hilton. This time the concierge here who is very friendly gave me a brochure and a very handy KL and Selangor map.

Well, I understand we tried looking for brochures and maps at a very odd time. But this experience makes me believe that we are not doing good enough to promote VM2007.