Pirates of Subang Jaya

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Originally uploaded by williamnyk.

City Revival Church organized a Charity Treasure Hunt on Saturday and I was roped in to help out in my sister and Cin's team. SK joined last minute. I tried asking KK earlier, but he gave me some lame ass excuse that he's car sick-prone. Cin was very excited over it and even exclaimed that she's in it to WIN. Wow. No pressure, then (seeing that it's my first time in a motor treasure hunt and all). What about charity?! :P. Truth be told, my only experience in treasure hunts was gained more than 15 years digging paper clues outta cracks in the wall, under bricks and in the bark of old mango trees.

We arrived at the starting point, Holiday Villa, Subang Jaya at 7:00am (imagine what ungodly hour I had to wake up) and found that the organizers had just begun to put up shop. Kena tipu, celaka. Seeing that we couldn't register yet, We went off to nearby Taj Curry House for breakfast. The thosai (not to mention service) was not up to par. As bad as Ashifa, Section 14 PJ. I have more things to complain about that place, but perhaps I was just a tad grouchy in the morning (think Oscar of Sesame Street). After that,
we registered and took our goodie bags (cod liver oil, biscuits, sandwiches, Sunway Lagoon Club One Day Pass, Sunway Pyramid Privilege Card, Red Bull, Holiday Villa pen, City Revival Church pamphlets and bookmark, VCD on Jesus and a 20% discount voucher for Holiday Villa restaurants).

The briefing finally commenced at 7:45am. Apparently only 36 teams registered (they were hoping for 100). The briefing introduced all the basics of treasure hunting and the finer points of clue-solving. Lotsa word games-- anagrams, word-
associations, bilingual word play, abbreviations and other things that force you think out of the box (oh, how I hate that phrase).

Some treasure hunting jargon:
Tulip: road direction, guide
Trip: verb, to set your car tripmeter to 0
Treasure: Special clues that need physical objects for an answer

We flagged off at 8:49am and ended our run at about 1:25pm. My sister was the designated driver (Ford Frontier!). I was the navigator (thank goodness my infamous bad sense of direction didn't send us off course to Ulu Yam or God knows where). Cin and SK were the look outs. The tulips had us gallavanting all over Subang Jaya, Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam and back. By noon, I experienced brain freeze. Couldn't read the tulips right. Couldn't bother with the clues.

Aiyah can lah. Correct la. Next! Here turn left, no, right! Where are we?

Had the free lunch spread (nothing to shout about-- as Cin remarked, "Holiday Villa is not known for their food") and waited around until 3:00pm for the last team to clock in and the organizers to compile the results. The marking was slow! When they were finally finished, we were shocked at some of the anwers to the questions. Some were too "IQ", a bit far-fetched. But we got a few difficult ones correct, even though our jalan kerja
salah.

Some examples:
Boo Boo's friend's place: Turned out to be "Yogi Supplies Sdn Bhd". Yogi Bear! Didn't hit me. I guessed "Persekutuan Persatuan2 Perancangan Keluarga Malaysia"! I thought the "Boo Boo" meant "mistake". Apparently not.
Child with ring Dancing Ladies: The answer was "Percetakan Okid Sdn Bhd". Ring here meant "O". "Child" translates to "Kid". "Dancing Ladies" is a kind of orchid,
hence the whole "Orkid" angle.

To cut a very long story short, we came in 14th place. The prize is supposed to be worth MYR210. It was a total rip-off.
1) MYR50 in cash (MYR10 for each team member, MYR10 for 4D, chipped in an extra MYR5 per
person for 4D-- a total loss. We gambled it all away...)
2) 2 tickets for the Tasik Putrajaya Belimbing Cruise (a cruise in a giant starfruit?!)
3) 1 MYR100 voucher to buy a laptop battery (baik jangan bagi)

The day ended at 5:00pm. Pooped. And you know what, Cin went to another treasure hunt the next day. She ended up with a bunch of clueless aunties. Should have stuck with victorious Team 33!