To qualify for the race, one had to solve codes and clues from local Mediacorp's 8 Days magazine, Class 95 FM, Today newspaper and TV's Channel 5 correctly.

And out of over 2000 correct entries, the first 150 could contest in the race.

Ok, I admit. I had nothing better to do.
But hey, I qualified for the race.
No harm trying, rite?

And I got to do the race with a partner ala Amazing Race.
I chose my BMTC buddy Weiyong (I went to KL with him the last time too) to join me in the race.
Haha...
Seriously, we were the most unlikely pair. I was just inviting trouble when I asked him. We were like chalk and cheese.
It wasn't long before we started bickering (even before the race started).

Furthermore, the grand prize was amazing.
2 tickets to the DaVinci Trail in Paris, London and Scotland.
Just like the two main characters in the book.
Just imagine an all-expense-paid trip to Europe...
I'm just drooling thinking of it...

But I guess Lady Luck wasn't by our side cause we didn't win it. We were not even in the top 20.

But to hell with that, the race was amazing!!
We reported at the startline at Cathay Cineplex (Handy Road) earlier than the sugggested time 10.30am.
It started later than the scheduled time (1pm) with all of us receiving a clue in an envelope (ala Amazing Race).

We were 'flagged off' by the ever gorgeous Jean Danker, Carrie Chong and some other Chinese DJ (heck what's his name...).

The two of us took a shorter route to the Dhoby Ghaut MRT train station.
We were the first to reach the station while solving the clue in the envelope, which was an ambigram (readers to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons will know) of the words Art&Science and Philosophy (when you turn it around) which was cool.

We SMS-ed the answer and got our next clue to the next stop (which was Bugis) via SMS too.

There, we had to find a difference between two Mona Lisas on the lightbox advertisement for the movie. (A few strands of her hair were airbrushed away in one... other than that, they were so similar).

Then the next clue was to a station in the west, named after an angmor governor.

We initially thought it was Raffles. So we went to Raffles Place (we argued it was to the west of Dhoby Ghaut). But it was a grave mistake... One that could have stolen minutes from us...

So we called our friends at home to search on the internet for governors named Dover, Clementi, Outram (any train station in the west that sounded angmor-ish.

Turned out it was Clementi. So we went there and had to count the number of spikes on the Rose Compass found on the lightbox advertisement there.

We made the same mistake of almost running off without getting our answer sheet stamped (we did that at Bugis earlier).
Another mistake that could have saved us minutes...
And to make it worst, my phone died on me!!!
I charged it the whole night before!!
Dammit!!!

So Weiyong and I had to swoop phones and exchange SIM cards. We wasted more time!!!

Next stop was an 'East' Station in the West.
Jurong East. My turf...

We came across an anogram.
'The Purest Pals'
Look up for divine inspiration.

Above the anogram, on that particular lightbox ad, there was the painting of DaVinci's 'The Last Supper'.
So it took me seconds to solve that one.

Next stop was a station named 'centre' in Hokkien and 'new' in Malay.
Tiong Bahru.

Then it was off to Bedok.

Next stop, the one-and-only yellow train station in Singapore.
We initially thought it was Commonwealth but after numerous calls to people we know living in every corner of Singapore, it was almost unanimous- Toa Payoh.

On our way there, we saw two dudes (we presume the winners) already dashing off the train at Dhoby Ghaut station.

Our gamble was right.
There at Toa Payoh, we found a cryptex.
The answer was staring at us the entire time.
It was 'chase', nicely aligned together without us needing to reshuffle the alphabets.

Then the last clue directed us to our final destination, back at where we started ie. Cathay at Dhoby Ghaut.

So we dashed to the end point ala Amazing Race only to find half the teams there at the end point.
How disappointing...

But we got a bagpack with the supposed $1300 worth of DaVinci goodies...
$1300, Ya rite...

I doubt so...

I was only glad to receive the sneak preview tickets to the movie this Wednesday night (only a day ahead of the movie's release in Singapore!!! Wad the? You call that sneak preview?)

But seriously, it was not winning the prize that mattered (ya rite) it was the experience that counts.

I couldn't ask for a better partner.
Weiyong was steady as a rock (almost) while I was the overly excited one (I was peeing so much before the race and during the race, I was dehydrated!!! I had cramps during the last mad dash to the finish line but that didn't stop me from running like mad).
He gave me words of encouragement throughout the race (so did I, though both of us were apprehensive that we could not win due to our mistakes earlier...) and I am glad we stuck by not giving up at any time during the race.
We did bicker a lot (mostly him teasing me and I snapping at him in return)...
And he was 'patient' with all my whiny complaints and stuff.

He was the street smart one while I was the book smart one.
He knew his way around Singapore (I give it to him that).
So you know, he hadn't read the book and wasn't planning to anytime soon.
He was just gonna watch the movie.
And he even insulted those who read (anything for that matter)
that it was a waste of time (or something like that...).
Typical Weiyong...
Bad choice for a partner on my part...

So he had no idea what anagrams and crytex were. So I had to solve all the clues and broke all the codes myself.
(You know I'm not lying, Weiyong...)

But even that, I couldn't ask for a better partner.

So thanks, bro.
And see ya this Wednesday for the 'sneak preview'.

Oh... and thanks Michael Rod. He was the 'friend at home on the internet' I called for help (like 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?'). And thanks to the numerous others whom I called for help... And complete strangers on the train I seeked help from.

And I apologise to those commuters or other participants whom I (accidentally??) pushed, shoved and tripped on during the entire race.

Labels: movie, personal

To qualify for the race, one had to solve codes and clues from local Mediacorp's 8 Days magazine, Class 95 FM, Today newspaper and TV's Channel 5 correctly.

And out of over 2000 correct entries, the first 150 could contest in the race.

Ok, I admit. I had nothing better to do.
But hey, I qualified for the race.
No harm trying, rite?

And I got to do the race with a partner ala Amazing Race.
I chose my BMTC buddy Weiyong (I went to KL with him the last time too) to join me in the race.
Haha...
Seriously, we were the most unlikely pair. I was just inviting trouble when I asked him. We were like chalk and cheese.
It wasn't long before we started bickering (even before the race started).

Furthermore, the grand prize was amazing.
2 tickets to the DaVinci Trail in Paris, London and Scotland.
Just like the two main characters in the book.
Just imagine an all-expense-paid trip to Europe...
I'm just drooling thinking of it...

But I guess Lady Luck wasn't by our side cause we didn't win it. We were not even in the top 20.

But to hell with that, the race was amazing!!
We reported at the startline at Cathay Cineplex (Handy Road) earlier than the sugggested time 10.30am.
It started later than the scheduled time (1pm) with all of us receiving a clue in an envelope (ala Amazing Race).

We were 'flagged off' by the ever gorgeous Jean Danker, Carrie Chong and some other Chinese DJ (heck what's his name...).

The two of us took a shorter route to the Dhoby Ghaut MRT train station.
We were the first to reach the station while solving the clue in the envelope, which was an ambigram (readers to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons will know) of the words Art&Science and Philosophy (when you turn it around) which was cool.

We SMS-ed the answer and got our next clue to the next stop (which was Bugis) via SMS too.

There, we had to find a difference between two Mona Lisas on the lightbox advertisement for the movie. (A few strands of her hair were airbrushed away in one... other than that, they were so similar).

Then the next clue was to a station in the west, named after an angmor governor.

We initially thought it was Raffles. So we went to Raffles Place (we argued it was to the west of Dhoby Ghaut). But it was a grave mistake... One that could have stolen minutes from us...

So we called our friends at home to search on the internet for governors named Dover, Clementi, Outram (any train station in the west that sounded angmor-ish.

Turned out it was Clementi. So we went there and had to count the number of spikes on the Rose Compass found on the lightbox advertisement there.

We made the same mistake of almost running off without getting our answer sheet stamped (we did that at Bugis earlier).
Another mistake that could have saved us minutes...
And to make it worst, my phone died on me!!!
I charged it the whole night before!!
Dammit!!!

So Weiyong and I had to swoop phones and exchange SIM cards. We wasted more time!!!

Next stop was an 'East' Station in the West.
Jurong East. My turf...

We came across an anogram.
'The Purest Pals'
Look up for divine inspiration.

Above the anogram, on that particular lightbox ad, there was the painting of DaVinci's 'The Last Supper'.
So it took me seconds to solve that one.

Next stop was a station named 'centre' in Hokkien and 'new' in Malay.
Tiong Bahru.

Then it was off to Bedok.

Next stop, the one-and-only yellow train station in Singapore.
We initially thought it was Commonwealth but after numerous calls to people we know living in every corner of Singapore, it was almost unanimous- Toa Payoh.

On our way there, we saw two dudes (we presume the winners) already dashing off the train at Dhoby Ghaut station.

Our gamble was right.
There at Toa Payoh, we found a cryptex.
The answer was staring at us the entire time.
It was 'chase', nicely aligned together without us needing to reshuffle the alphabets.

Then the last clue directed us to our final destination, back at where we started ie. Cathay at Dhoby Ghaut.

So we dashed to the end point ala Amazing Race only to find half the teams there at the end point.
How disappointing...

But we got a bagpack with the supposed $1300 worth of DaVinci goodies...
$1300, Ya rite...

I doubt so...

I was only glad to receive the sneak preview tickets to the movie this Wednesday night (only a day ahead of the movie's release in Singapore!!! Wad the? You call that sneak preview?)

But seriously, it was not winning the prize that mattered (ya rite) it was the experience that counts.

I couldn't ask for a better partner.
Weiyong was steady as a rock (almost) while I was the overly excited one (I was peeing so much before the race and during the race, I was dehydrated!!! I had cramps during the last mad dash to the finish line but that didn't stop me from running like mad).
He gave me words of encouragement throughout the race (so did I, though both of us were apprehensive that we could not win due to our mistakes earlier...) and I am glad we stuck by not giving up at any time during the race.
We did bicker a lot (mostly him teasing me and I snapping at him in return)...
And he was 'patient' with all my whiny complaints and stuff.

He was the street smart one while I was the book smart one.
He knew his way around Singapore (I give it to him that).
So you know, he hadn't read the book and wasn't planning to anytime soon.
He was just gonna watch the movie.
And he even insulted those who read (anything for that matter)
that it was a waste of time (or something like that...).
Typical Weiyong...
Bad choice for a partner on my part...

So he had no idea what anagrams and crytex were. So I had to solve all the clues and broke all the codes myself.
(You know I'm not lying, Weiyong...)

But even that, I couldn't ask for a better partner.

So thanks, bro.
And see ya this Wednesday for the 'sneak preview'.

Oh... and thanks Michael Rod. He was the 'friend at home on the internet' I called for help (like 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?'). And thanks to the numerous others whom I called for help... And complete strangers on the train I seeked help from.

And I apologise to those commuters or other participants whom I (accidentally??) pushed, shoved and tripped on during the entire race.

Labels: movie, personal

1. My Amazing Race.