SMRT Challenge 2005

got out of hibernation to write this account...

woke up at 6am to get ready for the SMRT Challenge... realised that i've not read the annual report... hopefully they won't test us on anything in it... hahahaha...

bumped into Jsen at Ang Mo Kio MRT station... took the train together to Woodlands MRT station where the registration point was...

met Eric and off we went... got our challenge pack that contained a poncho, a towel, a bottle of New Water, a Transitlink guide, an Integrated MRT and LRT system map, our number tags, our challenge passport and goddie bag coupons (to be collected at the end of the race)...

there are three categories: open red, open blue and school... we're in the open red category, team number 10 (hence, OR-10)...

some pics of the registration area:




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after registration, we took our group photo... then we had our final briefing before Miss Lim Hwee Hua, the guest-of-honour, flagged the open blue category off... after about 20 minutes, we were flaged off...

some pics of the final briefing conducted by one of the emcees, Robin Goh...




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number tag of some stranger who was sitting in front of me:


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pictures of us before leaving the registration area to collect our clue:
me and Jsen


Jsen and Eric

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got the clues (and our $20 taxi voucher)... started deciphering them... the final 8 challenge stops were (in the order that we went):
1. Kranji (where the turf Club is)
2. Segar (BP11 of the Bukit Panjang LRT)
3. Choa Chu Kang (where Phua Chu Kang said that his surname is not Yeo)
4. Jurong East (where Snow City is)
5. Tanjong Pagar (fill in the blanks)
6. Lavender (near Crawford Street and Horne Road)
7. Khatib (equate numbers with alphabets and solve the puzzle)
8. Sembawang (overslept and ended up at Woodlands and had to take two stops back)

except for Kranji where there was a queue, we completed the rest of the tasks quite quickly...

on the way to Lavender, the 2 posers of our team were taking photos:




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from Lavender, we took a SMRT taxi to Khatib (the most value-for-money way to utilise our $20 taxi voucher)...

after we finished our last task (where we had to give out 60 flyers on safety to the public) at Sembawang, we were neck-to-neck with another team... we were on the same train heading to the finishing point, Woodlands MRT... when we reached Woodlands MRT, we tried to walk briskly (cos running in the MRT is against safety rules and attracts demerit points of 5 minutes)... once out of the MRT station, we were practically sprinting towards the finishing line... managed to be ahead of the other team and eventually, we were the third team to come back...

after registering our return, we had about 2 hours to spare... went to Swensens at Causeway Point for lunch... then it was back to the Challenge area to wait for the official results...

after some games and the prize presentation for the art competition (for kids), it was time to give out the prizes for the winning teams in the 3 categories... indeed, the final results had us at third place... quite a pleasant surprise really... i was never here to win cos i was a last minute substitute (when Jsen's colleague couldn't make it) and i just recovered from my Hepatitis A infection...

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our winning "cheque" of $600...

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more pics of the two posers with the winning cheque:


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the whole idea of the Challenge is to promote safety and courtesy while travelling on public transport... SMRT did a great job and the entire Challenge was VERY well organised... we had a fun time... there's actually no registration fee (i.e. FOC) except for the time and effort we contributed to the success of the race...

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gotta say a big Thank You to Jsen for asking me to take part in this Challenge... luckily it wasn't that physically challenging... except for the travelling, the tasks were mostly written and verbal ones... not forgetting the singing one at Khatib... hahahaha...

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time to get back into hibernation mode and see you guys here once i have sorted things out...