6th December 2008: Departed early in the morning from Taiping, Hong Kia’s house at 9am to Penang. Gals were really ‘mo’ one lor. Driving all the way smoothly until we reached Penang Bridge, so crowded. We were going to be late, and we were! We were the last team to register at 11am sharp, when the organizer had started the briefing.
ANG ANG Everywhere...
Went into the hall, the hall was ANG ANG coz the theme was RED, so all participants wore reds. Wow…very HONG ar! The briefing was half way through, I didn’t make any sense out of it! I thought we were the only team who didn’t know how this Food Hunt games to be played. So blur, especially with two blur and two not so blur persons as team members :P The organizer explained what were the Leg 1, Leg 2, challenges, treasures, and tulips. Well, tulips? It’s flower or what? Hahaha…it’s the guide for road direction!
Flag Off, challenges came ahead...
Alright, we were asked to go into the car and wait for the Hunt to be flagged off. Now, we got Leg 1: Google all the way, which requested us to visit four given eating places (google maps were given) to get the stamps and submit at Cititel (advised to complete within 2 hours), choose one to enjoy the food and take one creative photos of us; Challenge 2 to take 3 creative shots at Penang heritage and develop the photos and submit at the finishing point. Challenge 1 to be collected at Digi Centre at Gurney Plaza; 4 Treasures to be answered, bought the necessary items, and submit at the finishing point too.
Didn't know HOW but BUSY...
BIG HEAD now! What and how should we get started with all these Leg, Challenge and Treasures? We didn’t familiar with Penang roads. Hong kia was our only hope. Without proper planning, we opted to go to the first eating place, Tze Zu Lin Vegetarian Restaurant. Hahaha…looking at the Google maps, nobody was able to tell how to reach the place. Esther, Hong kia, cracking their head with no idea; me? Don’t bother me with that, please! Yan jie jie, no time to read maps lar, she was responsible to drive, drive and drive, where got extra hands and eyes leh?
Busy all the way! One kept driving and asking the rest how and where? Go straight? Left? Right? One was reading the maps and trying to make sense out of the pieces! One was calling friends and asking the directions; while the other one trying to solve the treasures and sms-ing friends to crack the head together. Ho ho ho…could you imagine the picture of 4 cha bos in the car doing different things at one time?
Invisible Honeyman
Oh, not-to-be-missed, there’s one invisible honeyman got busy with us. US? Not really us. It’s to SHE – Esther, his dear. Who? Who leh? Ma si from Ta Sam Pa geh Da La Pa, Jeffrey Tan lor! Kept busy calling his dear every one hour (more than 5 times during the whole hunt, I supposed) until we all called it a stop! He uh, ka ka cau cau nia. We know lar, missing his dear so much when she’s not around! So, appreciate more when she’s beside you ya…:P
Jialat! No eyes see...
At last, went to Gurney and got the Challenge 1 sheet (answer 5 Malay kuih with correct Malay names and submit at New World Food Court). Then, we were heading to the eating place. We reached there finally. Yes, we did it BUT with 1 hour plus effort! Haha…The place was so near, yet so far for us! Jiatlat lor! First place took 1 hour plus, how about the rest? No eyes see! Eat first, the stomach was making noise by now.
With very quick motion, we finished the food and heading to the rest of the eating places to obtain the stamps. All were nearby, performance after eating really different lor. We finished the task at last within 15 mins and rushed to submit Challenge 1 at Cititel and to the next destination, submit Leg 1 at New World Food Court and time for Leg 2.
Fool around @ Food around...
Jor…a sea of red shirt people hanging around New World Food Court already. So many reached there before us! Fast, we gotta be fast to finish Leg 2, so that we could start Leg 3. What we got for Leg 2? 10 questions to be answered, the answers were around the food courts at this area. Another BIG BIG head for four of us. Why ne? Coz the teasers didn’t make sense to us. We didn’t understand what the question want at all. Really sweating lor this time …
Passed half an hour, still had no clue out of 10 questions. Really no patience for that already. Aiya…we got the vouchers for food here. So, the best we could do is SIT and EAT, the questions, NO BOTHER lar, cin cai filled in, cin cai submit lar. Enjoy some food here: pancake (still considered good), popiah (so watery with the fillings geh?), chestnut water (so sweet!), some sushi (to be eaten in the car later)…not an ideal place for good food, this was what we thought.
After eating, we gave our answers - Bak Zhang lar, Nice Day lar, Japanese Eel lar, all in BUT we knew none was correct, just for the sake of submission :P Oh yea…we had earned 10 bonus point for making a nice APOM. Esther was our representative. The APOM made by Esther, of course, YUMMY! We finished it all :P
Kan Cheong lor...
By 4pm, we started our Leg 3. Hopefully, we were able to do this more rights than wrongs. We had Spice Trail for Leg 3 with tulips given. What we needed to do was follow the tulips to reach different destinations and answer all 20 questions accordingly. The answers were on the signboard of the shops around. This one real Qi Kit lor. Love this part the most! Even we needed to squeeze our brain, but it’s fun when you were able to make sense and get the answer. BRAVO!
All the way fun, got BIG head, got the answers (right or wrong, didn’t know lar :P). Till we were heading to Bukit Gedung, we encountered our problem with direction coz the gate as per tulips shown was CLOSED. Closed, BIG stuff to us, meaning we started to get LOST. We were not local! How to make the rest? Making few rounds around, wasting some time, making calls to the organizer, finally we got the place. This was crazy! We felt annoyed, of course. The organizer should know it by first hand! Kept our temperature low, we continued our trails to find answers for Leg 3.
When everyone got exhausted...
It was around 6.45pm, the sky was getting dark. Now, we had 4 more questions to go. Exhausted was what I could tell at that moment. We needed to complete all questions and submit Leg 3, Challenge 2 and Treasures at finishing point, Ford Cornwallis. All of us, opted for “GIVE UP lor”, too tired to find way now, let’s heading to the finishing point by now. Gotta follow the tulips still coz we didn’t know how to get to Ford Cornwallis. We did stop and try to answer the remaining fours, but brain cells were dead by now.
By 7pm, we reached Ford Cornwallis, with our answer sheets, our bought items, no photos being developed, we submitted whatever we had, whatever we could. Where’s the tent? We couldn’t see. The surroundings were dark. We made fool of ourselves again, made a BIG round with tired feet, and finally we found the organizer under the tree, which was so insignificant to see. Ghost knew they were there! Another frustrating point, for sure! Really heating up temperature of us. How many mini mistakes had the organizer done? Aiyo…Please review at their post-mortem if they hope to get a more successful and well-response Food Hunt for next year!
What we got...
Penang Food Hunt 2008, we didn’t came for prize. We came for experience. We came for fun. While things prepared by the organizer may make sense to most Penangkia, how about the NOT LOCAL?
Penang Food Hunt 2008, our first treasure hunt activity. We understand by now, before kicking off for anything else, we need a proper planning, so you’ll be able to finish the tasks and challenges given in time.
Penang Food Hunt 2008, four blurred gals joined the games. Without getting clear the whole picture of it, the games flagged off and came to the end so soon. Four gals were hunting the FOOL instead for the FOOD.
Penang Food Hunt 2008, came to the end, yet it’s just the beginning of the story for the gals for other hunts :P
BRAVO! Gals! 
