Happy Hunting!
Last weekend, we (Jeremy, Jaycee, Jaclyn and yours truly) took a trip up North, not to get away from the haze mind you, but to take part in the Philips All Xcess Treasure Hunt 2005. Destination: Penang Island. Let me unfold the hectic but thoroughly enjoyable events on a day-to-day basis…12th August, Friday.
6.30pm – Met up with Jaycee at Taman Desa Waterpark for the hunt briefing and collected the stickers and goodie bags. Nothing much of note in the goodie packs, save for a bottle of sunsilk shampoo (about time too, Pantene supply running out ;-p). After briefing, we went home and dilly-dallied around while waiting for Jay and Jer to come over and prepare the all-important replenishments for hunt day (read: food… glorious food).
11.00pm – Sandwiches, croissants, hotdogs, etc, etc… prepared and packed. All 4 of us call it a night and retire to get some much needed rest for the long drive up to Pg.
13th August, Saturday.
5.00am – Bloody alarm rings non-stop. I slam the button and give the clock a shove. Stupid ass clock, ring so early for wat? And then it hit me, dammit… wake up. Hunt day today. Stretching & yawning & cursing, drag myself out of bed and get myself cleaned up. Everybody’s up, last minute packing and 5.50am, we leave for Desa Waterpark again for the flag-off. Reach the venue, switch on my digicam and find out that my battery is near dead. Great start I must say.
7.00am – Last minute briefing kautim and we’re off. Everything started well, we run thru the clues, treasures and its smooth running. A couple of clues don’t make sense to us and we start scratching our heads, and me, my ba**s. Should have put on the other pair of undies. Neways, we ‘try’ our best and arrive at the 1st checkpoint in Taiping with some time to spare.
12.00pm – Submit the 1st leg hunt answers and proceed to go to Pg for the 2nd leg hunt, which was all about challenges. We rack our brains trying to think of the possibilities… “What type of challenges har?” “You think they’ll get us to do this.. and that?”
1.30pm – Arrive in Penang, Prangin Mall. Look around and we couldn’t find the Philips stage at the concourse area. And no wonder, it was at the other wing, across the damn road, which by the way was filled with smelly, smoking buses. We get to the stage area and find out that the challenges start at 2.30pm. So we linger around and decide which one of us to perform which challenges.
3.00pm – Completed the challenges and we still had to wait for the last challenge, which was delayed to 4.30pm.. $%%^&*^Y&$%… So on to McD we went for a break and some fries.
4.30pm – Last challenge was for us to get 7 items that make up the word P.H.I.L.I.P.S. So with a lot of running and improvising, we managed to get it done in about 20 mins. Left Prangin Mall at about 5.00pm and got caught in the infamous Pg crawl from town to Bayan Lepas.
Fast forward to …..
7.30pm – Buffet style dinner at the Equatorial ballroom (that’s where we stayed btw). But dinner didn’t start till about 8.15pm. Who’s fault? Dunno la, some VIP was delayed in his hotel room I guess. Dinner was stupendous. Dinner was yum-yum. I’d do dinner again. Entertainment was pretty much entertaining. Host of the night – some dude named Jiggie. You would have caught him in the Malaysian Idol advertisement last year; the skinnier of the condo security guards singing about getting your visitor pass to park your car.
Damn cool stage setup and deco
10.00pm – Prize presentation. Boo-hoo. We didn’t win anything. Zilch. Nothing. Zero. But we had fun, and real serious fun too at that. Jay, Jer and Jac, it was fun all the way wasn’t it!!!
12.00pm – Zzzzzzzzz.
14th August, Saturday.
8.00am – Jac wakes me up. We wake the rest up. Breakfast at the same ballroom, but it was nothing like dinner. No way did it come close. No VIP mah. Sucks.
9.30am – All 4 of us toured the hotel grounds. Taking pictures galore, like the attention-grabbing people we most definitely are. Heheh. Jay, I ‘m still waiting for your photos so that I can post some of ‘em up here.
Lingering around at the hotel poolside
11.00am – Packed and ready for checkout. We went straight for Kek Lok Si temple in Air Itam, took the ride up to the statue, took photos, enjoyed the hazy scenery and then proceeded to the Air Itam market for some lunch. If you’re ever in the area, assam laksa at the market is unbeatable. RM2.20 a bowl. Laksa heaven. And the fried tofu was also so so so smooth. I am most definitely going back there again.
The only photo of all 4 of us
12.30pm – Stop by to meet up with one of Jay’s friends and we were off. KL, here we come! Apart from some minor glitches along the way, near Juru specifically (which I will not go into details), everything was smooth.
7.30pm – Dinner together and they dropped us off back in USJ.
All in all, a really hectic but enjoyable weekend. Save for the minor disappointment in not winning anything, it was a weekend to remember. Cheerios!
posted by CapArnabBrand @ 6:46:00 PM
2 Comments:
dood...you didn't have to go to air hitam for asam laksa. bayan lepas has one of the best, if not better. i feel that air hitam's one is a bit un-hygienic...
you're gonna have to take me there next time then !!!
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