The Amazing Race Asia 2 Episode 5 was a to be continued leg. With all teams onboard the same train heading to what we were deliberately misled to believe was a pitstop, everybody’s pretty bunched up, but there likely exists a few minutes between the teams. Now that we’re heading out of Japan, it’ll be interesting to see how it impacts Daichi & Sawaka, while Terry & Henri’s dysfunctionality should continue to hamper them regardless of country.
First: Ann & Diane
Second: Rovilson & Marc
Third: Adrian & Collin
Fourth: Paula & Natasha
Fifth: Daichi & Sawaka
Sixth: Terri & Henry
Seventh: Vanessa & Pamela
Teams must head to Hakata Port international ferry terminal, where they will catch a ferry to Busan, South Korea, a journey of 320km. So all teams are once again even.
Rovilson & Marc have decided to disguise themselves so the other teams can’t tell where they are. Oddly, the massive fake moustaches in random moving places isn’t working, though.
When they arrive in South Korea, they will travel by taxi to Jongro Taekwando Academy, where they will kick their way through three boards each in Korea’s national sport. Marc & Rovilson get the first cab and stop to get directions. It’s a one way street with no passing, which means that all the other teams must wait while they find out where to go. Natasha yells out the window that their cab driver knows where he’s going, so they should just follow them. Even though Natasha’s not actually sure her driver knows where to go, the boys fall for this and follow them anyway. It’s not long before they’ve lost all the other taxis, though, but that’s not a bad thing because all the other taxis are in chaos as well. Like in some parts of the US, the traffic lights are considered optional by some. At one point, Rovilson comments on his taxi driver, “He may not know where he’s going, but he’ll run at least 15 red lights to get there.”
Despite the trouble, Rovilson & Marc are the first to arrive at the taekwando school, for a task they’ll likely finish faster than most other teams. As much as there’s a theory that it’s not all about strength, a bit of strength doesn’t hurt any. Adrian & Collin are a couple minutes behind. Ann & Diane are just dropped off at some random location. Vanessa & Pamela arrive third. Spelling out the name of the street (Unro) makes Paula & Natasha’s cab driver think they’re going to the United Nations (UN). They eventually find it fourth by dumb luck (they spot it… the cab driver has no clue he’s passed it), and they bump into Daichi & Sawaka near the destination, who then arrive shortly after. For some reason, Daichi wants to use this same clueless cab driver again, but then again, all the cab drivers seem pretty clueless where this place is, so it might not be such a bad idea. Terri & Henry are the sixth team to arrive, which means Ann & Diane are in last and apparently nowhere near finding the school.
From there, teams must travel by taxi to the Jagalchi Market and search for a golden pig statue, symbolizing the Chinese year of the golden pig, which comes once every 600 years. As they’re leaving, Marc & Rovilson believe that their cab’s been stolen by Adrian & Collin. Marc & Rovilson are willing to play this as a race but think karma will come back to play a role. Their plan is to use the yield on Adrian & Collin if they arrive first. They believe that if someone arrives before them, they’re definitely going to be yielded, but Collin discusses how they don’t want to antagonize anybody, which is probably wise because yielding a team at the head of the pack probably won’t matter anyway.
Adrian & Collin choose not to yield. Now that their choice for a yield is not an option, Rovilson & Marc also choose not to yield anybody. Not knowing how far behind Ann & Diane are, multiple teams suspect them as being the ones who will yield people. Vanessa & Pamela don’t yield either. Daichi & Sawaka don’t realize Ann & Diane, who they would have yielded otherwise, are behind them. Terri & Henry throw away the yield on Rovilson & Marc, who are way ahead of them as usual. What sense does this make? When they arrive, Paula & Natasha can’t figure out what the heck happened here any more than I can. However, this does give Ann & Diane some false sense of security, as they believe that by some miracle Terri & Henry were actually ahead of Rovilson & Marc.
The detour is a choice between slither or deliver. In slither, teams must get two tokens from a tank of octopus. In deliver, teams must deliver food in the traditional manner (on their heads) to three addresses, potentially problematic since not all streets have names. Of the two choices, the slither task appears to be ridiculously simple by comparison. If they’re going to setup a detour, at least make it so the choices are remotely even.
Perhaps knowing just how much easier slither is, all teams choose to do that detour, with the exception of Daichi & Sawaka. After a while of doing deliver, dropping from fourth to sixth in the process, they switch to the slither detour as well.
The next stop is Nurimaru APEC House in Hyundai Beach. It’s late at night, but it appears the location is being kept open specifically for the teams, as there is no hours of operations problem.
The road block is lock and key in Yongdusan Park, where a gatekeeper will give them a key that will only unlock one padlock. If they break the key, they’ll have to start all over again. We saw this dumb luck road block in The Amazing Race 6, which took teams hours and caused Hayden & Aaron to be eliminated, but this looks like a much simpler version of that (nowhere near as many locks, and they’re not decades old). At this point, all teams are roughly even anyway, as everybody’s pretty close to first place Rovilson & Marc, and even Ann & Diane are still in it, as they arrive ahead of Daichi & Sawaka, who receive directions from Natasha in an attempt to get rid of Ann & Diane. Ann & Diane attempt to pull an Amber by pretending they got the clue in the wrong direction, but Daichi doesn’t bite, though Sawaka suggests they at least consider going that way since they can’t find it otherwise.
Road block: Marc, Collin, Pamela, Paula, Terri (uh, the clue said patience), Ann, Daichi
Marc gets it on the first lock. It won’t be that easy for everybody else, but perhaps this is just another example of this episode’s poor task planning.
The pitstop for this leg of the race is Beomeosa Temple, the most well known and largest buddhist temple in Busan.
First: Rovilson & Marc (they don’t appear to win anything, but they celebrate – quietly – nonetheless)
Second: Adrian & Collin
Third: Terri & Henry
Fourth: Vanessa & Pamela
Fifth: Paula & Natasha
Sixth: Ann & Diane
Seventh: Daichi & Sawaka (eliminated)
Rovilson & Marc continue to dominate regardless of the circumstances. Adrian & Collin, who have been finishing second behind them for a few legs, continue to perform strongly as well. Terri & Henry had a surprisingly good leg, apparently because they weren’t arguing for a change. Ann & Diane, who typically place third, had quite a rough leg after getting lost. Daichi & Sawaka shined briefly with the home country advantage, but that was short lived once they took the ferry to Korea. Still, they remain as upbeat as can be expected in the face of elimination.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Amazing Race Asia 2 episode 7, and don’t forget our live blogs of The Amazing Race 12.
not really useful becoz its isnt current..
Recap of the current episode is up at http://www.dingorue.com/2008/01/04/the-amazing-race-asia-2-episode-7/