Hufht... It's been a while since my last post. I was occupied by many other things which distracted me from writing post in this blog. I have yet to finish my previous post series, even though it's already July (almost August) not May anymore. Hufht... time flies so fast...
In the weekend of July 27th-28th 2013 I spent my time "ineffectively", which was watching Youtube channels. I started with videos from my favorite Youtube channel, yep it is Wongfu Productions. Then I jumped to the neighboring channel, which was KevJumba where I saw one of his video playlists showing his most amazing adventure with his own father. Then, it suddenly struck my mind, I haven't watched again one of my favorite U.S. reality TV series for a couple of years now. Can you guess what is it?
yep, it is The Amazing Race, one of the most greatest reality TV shows which featuring 11 teams of 2 persons race each others around the world competing for the grand prize of US$ 1 million.
After watching KevJumba's playlist, I started googling for The Amazing Race. The first result from Google was unfortunately not available in my location. It was The Amazing Race official Youtube channel, where you can view the episode from any season of The Amazing Race U.S. Editions. Disappointed at first, but then I saw the third result which was a playlist of complete episode of The Amazing Race Season 16. Thanks to hensug03 who kindly uploaded the complete season 16 to Youtube (and later I realized he also uploaded season 13-22, The Amazing Guy). Supported by my "procrastination" ability (hehehe...) I watched the entire 12 episodes of season 16 within 18 hours (I promise I will not procrastinate like this again hehehe...). So, in this opportunity I will review and introduce The Amazing Race program generally, and maybe some of specific details example related to this show will be referred particularly to season 16, which is still fresh in my memory.
The Amazing Race, started back at 2001 by CBS is one of the most consistent reality TV shows which is aired consecutively until the most recent 22th season in the period of 13 years. This most competitive show gives opportunity for 11 lucky teams in each season to travel across the globe, visit the exotic places and sometimes even most remote places on earth, finish some challenges which test not only physically but also emotionally, in order to compete for the grand prize in the finish line for US$ 1,000,000. Each season consists of 12 episodes, where almost in each episodes each team which finishes last in the Pit Stop may be eliminated. However, there are some non-elimination leg during the race to ensure the number of team competing in the final leg is around 3 teams. But of course this non-elimination leg doesn't come without any cost, in the next leg the non-eliminated team will do an extra task to be completed only by them before catch up again in the race with the other team. This is called as Speed Bump. This speed bump may sometimes be a bottleneck if you can't complete it and it can danger your position in the following leg. But if you can finish it and catch up the race, you may still compete with the other teams. In season 16, one team who started last from the leg start, got speed bumped, finished first in the end of the leg. So, anything can happen in this race.
In my opinion, in this race anything can happen, so anyone has equal chance to win the race. To join this race, as I summarize, each team needs to have good physical strength, good emotional stability, strong passion, good persistence, not easily giving up, to be smart, good personality, social interaction and collaboration, good adaptability, good communication and persuasion skill, good map reading and driving skill, good running, cycling and swimming skill, and the last but not least is to have good luck. The good physical strength and emotional stability is required because in each leg, all the team will face challenges in form of Road Block and Detour which will not only examine them physically, but also mentally. In season 16, the first road block is walk across a tightrope the length of a football field (360 ft or 110 m) suspended 120 feet (37 m) above the ground. If you doesn't have good strength to maintain the walk on the rope and can't overcome the fear of height, you'll be easily lose in the challenge. In addition, if you are in race with the other team in the same road block, you need to have strong passion, good persistence and not easily giving up, in order your maintain your position not to be overtaken by the other team or crawling to better position. If you give up during the challenge, then you'll get penalty of 4 hours which will be killing you in the race.
To be smart is required, especially when you're in a detour. Smart enough to choose which challenge to take, and smart enough to choose who to do the challenge. If you choose the wrong challenge, you can either give up or take the other challenge in the detour, but again it will take your time, so be smart is important. But, if during detour you get U-Turn by the other team who are ahead of your position, then you must finish both challenges in detour. That's why here you need to have good personality and social interaction. Because in this race, you will interact socially with other team and if you have good personality you may have chance not to be U-turn by the other team. In season 16, one team got U-turn solely based on personal matter toward the other team, so this is good example to maintain good personality and social interaction. The good collaboration will need to be performed especially when you get in Intersection, where two teams will join forces to complete the challenges.
I mentioned good adaptability, because this is a race around the world, so you will move to approximately 5 different continents and 10 countries for the course of 3-4 weeks. So you will not stay in one place for very long time, you need to adapt easily with the environment, and then move again and adapt again. Sometimes moving can be from the hot tropical weather to the freezing cold weather because we travel to different part of the world. If you can't well adapt, get sick and need to be hospitalized, it will slow you down in the race. Because visiting different countries, you will face the communication is not easy. Not all country use English as their official language, and not all people can speak English. In fact, according to Wikipedia page, English is only the third most common native language after Chinese and Spanish. So, my advice before participating in this competition, you need to learn a little bit of Chinese and Spanish. In this race you'll need to buy transportation ticket, either airplane, bus, train, or ship, and if you have good communication and persuasion skill you will have some advantage to persuade the ticketing sales to give you better position in the transportation and will help you during the course of the race.
Good map reading and driving skill is obviously needed, since during the course of the race you'll be required to drive yourself using the car provided by the show organizer. This car is not always automatic, sometimes it is manual handling, and the traffic condition can be different from each country depends on which hand-side driving traffic policy they use (check this page to view the right- or left-hand traffic policy around the world). While driving the car, your partner in the team need to figure out the way to go by using map (GPS is prohibited and not provided) thus you need to be able to read map or you may get lost and holding you up during the race. Since this is race, you'll do a lot of running. Make sure you practice to run both sprint and marathon before participating. Of course swimming sometimes is required, both in calm water like lake or in the wavy water like in the open ocean, you need either to be able to swim or get drown. One more thing is cycling, you won't want anyone beat you because you can ride a bicycle.
The last important thing to have is a good luck. This is also important, because if you're leading the race but in the middle you have a bad luck, you may get eliminated also. Some examples, in the opening leg of season 16, actually the first 3 teams arrived at the LAX would be able to take the first flight. But since the airplane got some maintenance and took some times, the first three teams finally departed together with the rest of the other teams. In most of the challenges that required looking for something, some teams may got lucky by finding it first than the other team, this is obvious the role of good luck. The last one, in the final leg of season 16, the bad luck of choosing the right taxi cab eliminated their chance in winning US$ 1 million.
This race is truly amazing, it gives the competing team to visit the most exotic place in Earth such as Bora-Bora and Seychelles Island. Opportunity to do extreme things you've never thought of, such as skydiving and viewing the lagoon of Bora-Bora from 3000 m height, riding a helicopter, motorboat, jet ski, etc. Also because of traveling around the world, you'll be able to experience the local life in each country expressed by either Road Block or Detour challenge you take in each leg. As example, in season 16 when they visited Chile they experienced how to dress a llama. In Argentina, they experience cowboy life of lassoing some target. Tasting some boot of beer and sauerkraut in Germany, tasting champagne in France, and even making your own lamian noodle in China. This race totally gives an unforgettable one in a lifetime experience.
Last, some additional tips is trying not to be eliminated in each leg. It is okay if you can't be the first team to finish in every leg, but the important one is to keep racing and get to final leg to have chance to win the grand prize of US$ 1 million. Sometimes, due to the transportation availability, your position may all be reset in each leg, so you can try to finish first in the following leg. The good thing about finishing first in a leg that you will receive an additional reward such as holiday trip, money prize, HD TV, etc. This prize will be worth, even in the end you don't have the grand prize, at least you saved one. You can get more information in the Wikipedia page of The Amazing Race. Hufht... I hope someday I can join The Amazing Race.
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In the weekend of July 27th-28th 2013 I spent my time "ineffectively", which was watching Youtube channels. I started with videos from my favorite Youtube channel, yep it is Wongfu Productions. Then I jumped to the neighboring channel, which was KevJumba where I saw one of his video playlists showing his most amazing adventure with his own father. Then, it suddenly struck my mind, I haven't watched again one of my favorite U.S. reality TV series for a couple of years now. Can you guess what is it?
 |
| The Amazing Race U.S. Edition Logo (New logo started from season 14 according to its Wikipedia page) |
yep, it is The Amazing Race, one of the most greatest reality TV shows which featuring 11 teams of 2 persons race each others around the world competing for the grand prize of US$ 1 million.
After watching KevJumba's playlist, I started googling for The Amazing Race. The first result from Google was unfortunately not available in my location. It was The Amazing Race official Youtube channel, where you can view the episode from any season of The Amazing Race U.S. Editions. Disappointed at first, but then I saw the third result which was a playlist of complete episode of The Amazing Race Season 16. Thanks to hensug03 who kindly uploaded the complete season 16 to Youtube (and later I realized he also uploaded season 13-22, The Amazing Guy). Supported by my "procrastination" ability (hehehe...) I watched the entire 12 episodes of season 16 within 18 hours (I promise I will not procrastinate like this again hehehe...). So, in this opportunity I will review and introduce The Amazing Race program generally, and maybe some of specific details example related to this show will be referred particularly to season 16, which is still fresh in my memory.
The Amazing Race, started back at 2001 by CBS is one of the most consistent reality TV shows which is aired consecutively until the most recent 22th season in the period of 13 years. This most competitive show gives opportunity for 11 lucky teams in each season to travel across the globe, visit the exotic places and sometimes even most remote places on earth, finish some challenges which test not only physically but also emotionally, in order to compete for the grand prize in the finish line for US$ 1,000,000. Each season consists of 12 episodes, where almost in each episodes each team which finishes last in the Pit Stop may be eliminated. However, there are some non-elimination leg during the race to ensure the number of team competing in the final leg is around 3 teams. But of course this non-elimination leg doesn't come without any cost, in the next leg the non-eliminated team will do an extra task to be completed only by them before catch up again in the race with the other team. This is called as Speed Bump. This speed bump may sometimes be a bottleneck if you can't complete it and it can danger your position in the following leg. But if you can finish it and catch up the race, you may still compete with the other teams. In season 16, one team who started last from the leg start, got speed bumped, finished first in the end of the leg. So, anything can happen in this race.
 |
| Tightrope Walking in The Amazing Race Season 16 |
In my opinion, in this race anything can happen, so anyone has equal chance to win the race. To join this race, as I summarize, each team needs to have good physical strength, good emotional stability, strong passion, good persistence, not easily giving up, to be smart, good personality, social interaction and collaboration, good adaptability, good communication and persuasion skill, good map reading and driving skill, good running, cycling and swimming skill, and the last but not least is to have good luck. The good physical strength and emotional stability is required because in each leg, all the team will face challenges in form of Road Block and Detour which will not only examine them physically, but also mentally. In season 16, the first road block is walk across a tightrope the length of a football field (360 ft or 110 m) suspended 120 feet (37 m) above the ground. If you doesn't have good strength to maintain the walk on the rope and can't overcome the fear of height, you'll be easily lose in the challenge. In addition, if you are in race with the other team in the same road block, you need to have strong passion, good persistence and not easily giving up, in order your maintain your position not to be overtaken by the other team or crawling to better position. If you give up during the challenge, then you'll get penalty of 4 hours which will be killing you in the race.
 |
| U-Turn Symbol in The Amazing Race |
To be smart is required, especially when you're in a detour. Smart enough to choose which challenge to take, and smart enough to choose who to do the challenge. If you choose the wrong challenge, you can either give up or take the other challenge in the detour, but again it will take your time, so be smart is important. But, if during detour you get U-Turn by the other team who are ahead of your position, then you must finish both challenges in detour. That's why here you need to have good personality and social interaction. Because in this race, you will interact socially with other team and if you have good personality you may have chance not to be U-turn by the other team. In season 16, one team got U-turn solely based on personal matter toward the other team, so this is good example to maintain good personality and social interaction. The good collaboration will need to be performed especially when you get in Intersection, where two teams will join forces to complete the challenges.
I mentioned good adaptability, because this is a race around the world, so you will move to approximately 5 different continents and 10 countries for the course of 3-4 weeks. So you will not stay in one place for very long time, you need to adapt easily with the environment, and then move again and adapt again. Sometimes moving can be from the hot tropical weather to the freezing cold weather because we travel to different part of the world. If you can't well adapt, get sick and need to be hospitalized, it will slow you down in the race. Because visiting different countries, you will face the communication is not easy. Not all country use English as their official language, and not all people can speak English. In fact, according to Wikipedia page, English is only the third most common native language after Chinese and Spanish. So, my advice before participating in this competition, you need to learn a little bit of Chinese and Spanish. In this race you'll need to buy transportation ticket, either airplane, bus, train, or ship, and if you have good communication and persuasion skill you will have some advantage to persuade the ticketing sales to give you better position in the transportation and will help you during the course of the race.
Good map reading and driving skill is obviously needed, since during the course of the race you'll be required to drive yourself using the car provided by the show organizer. This car is not always automatic, sometimes it is manual handling, and the traffic condition can be different from each country depends on which hand-side driving traffic policy they use (check this page to view the right- or left-hand traffic policy around the world). While driving the car, your partner in the team need to figure out the way to go by using map (GPS is prohibited and not provided) thus you need to be able to read map or you may get lost and holding you up during the race. Since this is race, you'll do a lot of running. Make sure you practice to run both sprint and marathon before participating. Of course swimming sometimes is required, both in calm water like lake or in the wavy water like in the open ocean, you need either to be able to swim or get drown. One more thing is cycling, you won't want anyone beat you because you can ride a bicycle.
The last important thing to have is a good luck. This is also important, because if you're leading the race but in the middle you have a bad luck, you may get eliminated also. Some examples, in the opening leg of season 16, actually the first 3 teams arrived at the LAX would be able to take the first flight. But since the airplane got some maintenance and took some times, the first three teams finally departed together with the rest of the other teams. In most of the challenges that required looking for something, some teams may got lucky by finding it first than the other team, this is obvious the role of good luck. The last one, in the final leg of season 16, the bad luck of choosing the right taxi cab eliminated their chance in winning US$ 1 million.
 |
| Bora-Bora Skydiving Experience |
This race is truly amazing, it gives the competing team to visit the most exotic place in Earth such as Bora-Bora and Seychelles Island. Opportunity to do extreme things you've never thought of, such as skydiving and viewing the lagoon of Bora-Bora from 3000 m height, riding a helicopter, motorboat, jet ski, etc. Also because of traveling around the world, you'll be able to experience the local life in each country expressed by either Road Block or Detour challenge you take in each leg. As example, in season 16 when they visited Chile they experienced how to dress a llama. In Argentina, they experience cowboy life of lassoing some target. Tasting some boot of beer and sauerkraut in Germany, tasting champagne in France, and even making your own lamian noodle in China. This race totally gives an unforgettable one in a lifetime experience.
Last, some additional tips is trying not to be eliminated in each leg. It is okay if you can't be the first team to finish in every leg, but the important one is to keep racing and get to final leg to have chance to win the grand prize of US$ 1 million. Sometimes, due to the transportation availability, your position may all be reset in each leg, so you can try to finish first in the following leg. The good thing about finishing first in a leg that you will receive an additional reward such as holiday trip, money prize, HD TV, etc. This prize will be worth, even in the end you don't have the grand prize, at least you saved one. You can get more information in the Wikipedia page of The Amazing Race. Hufht... I hope someday I can join The Amazing Race.
