The N.E.X.T Challenge 08: How Much Is Integrity Worth?

26th July 2008, Saturday

Well I'll get to the integrity part after describing the whole experience.

7pm: We took Albert/Huimin's car to Tampines North CC, where we were supposed to gather and set off. We checked in our stuff, and brought all the necessary stuff with us. The rest, including our wallets, handphones, extra T-shirts, were all sealed into trash bags and deposited with the people in charge. As I was the appointed team leader, I had to go inside the briefing room for a short briefing by Hyder, the VP of The NEXT Challenge (TNC). I saw Iskandar, also my JC classmate, walking around and discovered that he is also one of the committee members. Still as cheeky-looking as ever LOL. After the briefing, we waited for the invited guest of honour, Tampines MP Ong Kian Min to flag off and start the race.

9pm: It's like 300+ people scrambling out of the CC. Team MKG managed to make their way to the MRT and be one of the first few teams to just manage to catch the train that heads off to Boon Lay. Woo! I thought we had a very good start. Our first clue led us to Raffles Place MRT, the Chevron. I met an SCE friend, Haiquan, on the train. And I chatted with him and found that his company was looking for people. Therefore I got him to SMS me his email for me to send me resume to. LOL. Can even get a job lobang without a phone on me. So we reached Raffles MRT station and saw that our first task was none other than Sudoku! My favourite wahaha! The Sentinels (TNC personnel) used the tiles on the floor to mark out a Sudoku puzzle for us to solve. We went straight to figure out the solutions. Only Peiyi didn't do it cos she doesn't know how to play Sudoku. I copied the puzzle onto my notebook and started solving. But after solving the first round of 1 to 5, I realized that I copied the puzzle wrongly! Parallax error! Diao... so I recopied the puzzle and restarted. Time wasted. But then I managed to finish much faster than most people and therefore we got our clue to our next destination.

2nd CP: Singapore Indoor Stadium: Stadium Waterfront. That's what we thought. Therefore we took the MRT again and reached Kallang MRT station. We kept hearing the announcement by SMRT staff to remind all passengers not to run around the MRT station LOL. TNC committee sure kena complain lah. Anyway we wanted to take bus from Kallang MRT station to our destination, but it seems like the bus might take too long. Therefore we decided to walk there instead. Along the way we had other teams trying to overtake us. And anyway we didn't really run, whereas most of the other teams walked very fast. Sure lose lah haha. Once we reached the bridge that leads to the old Cozy Bay, which is now closed, we were given the task to cut out a Chinese character "里" from a coloured paper. Albert took up the responsibility and quickly snipped out that character to enable us to get our next clue.

3rd CP: Esplanade? We tried to take a bus from Kallang Stadium to Esplanade. However we waited for almost 20 minutes before we got the bus we wanted. Damn. So we reached the Esplanade, the area just beneath Nicole Highway. We were told that we were at the wrong station. Diao!? It was revealed that there had been some cock-up in the clues given to us. Therefore from that point onwards we had already lost. Lost the advantage. Lost time. Lost the race in fact. WTF?!? We were told to go to our next clue instead. Win liao loh.

The real 3rd CP: Ok so what else could we do? We then took a bus from the Esplanade to The Cathay. True enough we got the correct place. There were TNC participants and TNC staff at one corner, right next to the ticketing area. So we were given the task to blow those bubble thingy and make a human figure with the bubbles. It's been years since we played with such things. And it seems that the brand they use is very sticky! We could hardly blow nice bubbles with them. Somehow we managed to complete the bubble man and so we were given the clue to the next destination. We were also told that we only need to get a chop onto our Passport from the Sentinels, without having to complete the task at that checkpoint. Perhaps it was the bonus given to us for making us go to the Esplanade, which is actually wrong!

4th CP: Our next clue should be around Fort Canning Hill, which was either the ROM or some other place in it. While making our way there, the Singapore Art Museum was lit up with very beautiful lightings. Super chio graphics shone onto the whole of the building. And there were plenty of people all around the building taking pictures. Cool man. So we continued our ascent and after searching high and low on Fort Canning Hill, we made it to the next checkpoint. It was the gate right on top of the hill. We got the chop from the Sentinel in charge, without having to go through the task. The task was to cut out a piece of paper so that the whole team can go through the piece of cut-up paper. Phew! So we hurried to our next clue. It was the Esplanade! This time it's definitely correct. So we made our way back to the Esplanade by walking all the way past Timbre, which we heard some live band performing as usual.

5th CP: Esplanade. So we were back to the Esplanade checkpoint. We had to do three different tasks. Spin a top for more than 5 seconds. Skip a rope for 20 rounds. Kick a chateh (is that how u spell it?) for more than 10 times! Siying completed the rope-skipping easily. Albert made the top spin more than 5 seconds. And I tried kicking the chateh. It's been years since I played chateh. The last time was in the army, when I played with platoon-mates all the time, in army boots. Looks like this time, using the SAF track shoes to kick wasn't as easy as I thought. I even took out my shoes and tried kicking with only my socks on. Even worse! Finally I made the 10th kick in the last minute of our given 10 minutes. Phew! So we got our next clue. We walked all the way to our next destination!

6th CP: Masjid Sultan Mosque. This mosque was somewhere near Lavendar MRT station. We walked all the way from the Esplanade to the mosque, after making some unnecessary turns. The next task was a puzzle. None of us could solve it, but Albert eventually managed to solve it, AFTER our time of 10 minutes was up! ZZzz... What a waste! Therefore we had to serve a penalty of 15 mins and therefore we sat there resting our tired legs. The muscles right at the back of the knees of my legs had already started feeling sore after the 2nd CP! WTH! Haven't been exercising lately wahahha! I was practically walking with pain every step of the way since the 2nd CP! Jialat siah. Now all my muscles still ache. So next up, we went to the last CP: Mustafa.

7th CP: Mustafa Shopping Centre. Here we are again. Another puzzle. This time it's a question: What goes round the world but stays in a corner? Diao. Got us stuck, and therefore another 15 mins penalty. The answer is stamp! DiaozZz... That was the last CP. Therefore we made our way to the first Relak Corner. We still had plenty of time left, therefore I tried to confirm with the Sentinel at Mustafa whether the time we reach RC1 affects the positioning in any way. He said confidently that it doesn't matter at all, but in actual fact it really DOES! Therefore we took our time and slowly walked to take the NR7 to Kallang MRT station, which in fact we should have rushed back asap. We waited more than 20 mins for NR7 to arrive. There were other teams on the bus too. So we got back to Kallang MRT station and made our way to PA.

Relak Corner 1: We reached PA and reported at 4am. Had just about 2 hours of rest/sleep before we need to assemble and set off for Day 2. We were in position 38 out of a total of about 66 teams. KNS. Must have been the cock-up earlier on. Otherwise I'm sure we'll be in the top 30 at least. What's more, we didn't use any of the $30 we had on us, neither did we use any of the 3 x 2 sets of help cards to complete the first phase of the race. And best of all, we walked most of the journey, instead of running. If we did all those, we may even be in top 10. But too bad, we lost any chance of winning top 3 anyway, since we were so disadvantaged right at CP1. We figured that it was the mistake by the Sentinels at CP1, by giving us the wrong clue and thus the wrong destination, which led to us being disadvantaged right at the beginning.

Anyway everyone slept all over the PA main building like refugees. We found a spot outside the building, but on the tiled floor area. I couldn't really sleep but just somehow rested my tired legs. At 5:30am, the team leaders had to gather for a short briefing by Hyder. We were divided into positions 1-20, 21-40, 40+. 1-20 Had a headstart and left at 5:45am. 21-40 could only set off at 6am. There were some groups from the 21-40 and 40+ group that actually went to PA twice, and therefore they were given a bonus "upgrade". Therefore they also were able to leave at 5:45am. I found it super unfair for my team to not have been upgraded and therefore confronted Hyder to clarify on the unfairness. Somehow the reason he gave me wasn't satisfactory. I went to him a second time to demand an explanation for the unfairness and still he gave me an unsatisfactory explanation. I still wasn't satisfied and therefore confronted the other official who was wearing black polo T-shirt. I think I shouldn't pester Hyder anymore cos I think he must be feeling a bit sianz since I'm his friend but there's nothing he could do to help me. I argued with the black polo guy and STILL couldn't get any satisfactory answer from him. He persuaded me to just carry on with the race instead of wasting time talking with him. Yeah the 21-40 groups had already left but I was still arguing with him LOL. Damn what a disorganized race. There wasn't much reason for us to chiong anyway, I thought. Too unfair for my team already. So I went back to Team MKG at 6+am and so we set off for Day 2.

1st CP: Kent Ridge Park. The clue was pretty obvious, because all you need to do is to pick out all the capital letters from the few sentences. They spelled Kent Ridge Park. However Peiyi thought that the place was at NACLI, the PA place for training leadership and stuff. We walked to Kallang MRT station and took the train all the way to Outram and changed to NEL to get to HarbourFront MRT station. There we took a bus to the place where Peyyong, Peiyi and I once got down to get to KRP. From there we walked quite a long way to NACLI. Somehow another group followed us, only to be fooled by us. We were at the wrong place! Then we continued down the road and climbed up the almost 45 degrees slope. Took us quite a while to reach the top. Albert was so fit that he could pull Huimin up and still were faster than the other 3 of us. Wahaha! Once we reached the checkpoint, we were split into two groups. One group had to make a poodle out of a balloon. The other group had to search for another checkpoint to get a tattoo done and then come back. Therefore Albert and Huimin went to get the tattoo. Luckily Peiyi had some experience in balloon art, and therefore made a super nice dog almost immediately. We got our next clue, which we thought was at the place I took many pictures with some statues. When we reached there, we realized it was wrong! The gate to the place was locked! Therefore we thought again and finally concluded it was Labrador Park! And so there we went...
2nd CP: Reached Labrador Park at 840hrs. We had to take a bus after walking quite a distance from the wrong "checkpoint" to the area outside Labrador Park. There was a row of hawker stalls selling very nice food. We then grabbed a taxi to take us all the way into Labrador Park, cos we figured that the journey was freaking long. Went spent our first $3.20 on that cab. So we went in and completed the task there, which was rather easy. It was to switch the places of three cups on the left and three cups on the right, with only a square in between them. You can only move one cup forward or jump over another, but not backwards. Took us less than 5 minutes to complete the task. So we were told that we only have half an hour to reach the next Relak Corner, which was in Pasir Ris! The clue given was "93, Pasir Ris Drive 3". We figured that it should be the Elias CC. Best! Half an hour how to get to Pasir Ris!? Therefore we decided to just take it easy and just walk all the way out to take the fastest bus to the nearest MRT station. Peiyi met someone familiar at the bus-stop lol. Then we took the bus that brought us to Raffles MRT station and from there we took the train all the way to Pasir Ris MRT station. Then we grabbed a taxi from White Sands' taxi stand to take us to RC2.

Relak Corner 2: We reached RC2 in the nick of time, cos if any later than 10:15am, we would have been discontinued from the race. We still had to get a penalty of 15 minutes for reaching after 9:15am. The moment we reached the CC, we saw other teams already setting off. What's worse is that we can only move off after resting at RC2 for 45 mins. Hyder and Iskandar were there and therefore I took the chance to take a 98S18 mini class photo with them lol.
1st CP: We got our next clue at 10:49am and decided it should be a chapel in Changi. However there was another place which we thought could also be the answer. Therefore we decided to use one of those Bingo! cards to determine the actual answer. We haven't used any of those help cards at all lol. Therefore I approached Hyder and gave him the Bingo! card. So he gave us the answer, which was what we had thought. Therefore we set off and grabbed a cab. The taxi-driver happened to have just drove some of the other teams to other places. In fact, we got to know that he just took a team to the final checkpoint at Kovan. They finished at 9+! WTH!? We thought that it was highly impossible. Oh well... Anyway we reached the Changi Chapel and had to complete a task. However we were told we could use a card to avoid the task, which was to take off all our shoes and socks and fill up some buckets with water and pass them around blah blah blah. Didn't actually know what the game was about, but we used the Bingo! card to skip the whole task. Woohoo! Then we went to the next clue at Bedok Reservoir in another cab.

2nd CP: Bedok Reservoir. We touched down right outside the condo outside the reservoir. I was the last to get off the cab and was asked by Siying whether I took the change. Huh? What change? I didn't know I was the one supposed to get the change at all. Best thing is, the driver drove off without returning us the $4 of change!!! WTF!!??! ~!#!#@$@#^%#%& Bloody hell freaking axxhole taxi-driver. So dishonest! Left me scolding the shit out of him for the rest of the race lol. We dashed to the area full of people. At the point, we were split into two groups again. This time two people had to kayak around a floating buoy and back. The other three had to get to Damai Primary School and get the motto. Therefore Albert and I did the kayaking. It was the first time I kayaked, some more at the very reservoir I drink water from. It was rather simple and not dangerous at all. We had life-vests on anyway. However water got into my pants and made everything wet wet wet. ZZZzzz... After less than 5 mins of kayaking, we went back and dried ourselves. The three girls finally came back after about 10 mins. They did pretty well already, because we thought they would walk all the way lol. Thus we completed our task and were given the clue to the next checkpoint. The Sentinel at the checkpoint gave us very big hints and thus we headed off to Pasir Ris again, at Pasir Ris Park.

3rd CP: Pasir Ris Park. We took bus 5 right outside Bedok Reservoir, but got off one stop later to change to bus 65 instead because taking 5 would be slower. So we headed for Tampines MRT station and took the train to PR. There we walked over to PRP and found the checkpoint with plenty of Sentinels. Task: Take pictures of all 4 shelters inside the mangrove swamp and also of one crab, within 15 minutes. So Albert and I ran as fast as we could and took the pictures. My legs felt like many hammers hammering away on my muscles already! But I think I didn't run as fast as when I was doing IPPT 2.4km run! Albert was so fit that he ran all the way and didn't really pant as much as me. OMG he's strong and I'm super weak! Wahahah! Thus we completed ALL the checkpoints for the whole race. And so we made our way to the bus-stop that will bring us to the final destination.
Last CP: Kovan Interchange? Dunno what name lah. But I was so exhausted that all I know is we'll finish all this within the next two hours or so. We took bus 53 and got off half an hour later. What?!? Still need to walk!? Everytime we rested, the next moment when we get up again, our legs feel like glue had hardened inside our legs, and any attempt to straighten our legs will mean excruciating pain. OUCH! Still, we made our way to Kovan interchange and finish up the final task. Blow a balloon each and sit on it until it bursts! Luckily Sharon wasn't with the team, otherwise we no need to finish the race liao wahhaha!

Finally!!! We sounded the gong to finish up the 18-hour long overnight race. OMG this must be the craziest+siong-est thing I did in my life. Even round island cycling wouldn't compare with this thing. We're glad we finished the whole race without cheating. All throughout the race, we thought of how we could actually cheat. But integrity first! Ya so now we talk about integrity. Integrity 可以吃的 meh? The winning team were like so big-sized and can hardly squeeze into a cab. Neither did they look like they could run even a short distance. Ok maybe they could, but however we calculated, it still is quite impossible for them to finish the race at 10:18am!! Oh well... maybe next year we will form another Dream Team to grab the $3000. This time we know how to play and how to cheat, I mean, make use of everything to our advantage. Hehehe...