spiderbraids

About a month ago, AXN Asia started airing the 2nd season of its original production of The Amazing Race. This season, Thailand is represented by two girls with at least some Thai blood, and naturally I'm rooting for them.

TARA2x01:
1. We opened in Singapore, and some teams already had problems trying to find their ride to some hill with the next clue. One of the Philippines teams appear to be the bickering type.
2. Clue on the hill, and it's product placement for a Nokia phone with GPS. Marc and Rovilson (another Philippines team) seem to be the comic relief of the show, as one of them sarcastically spoke commands in the GPS' voice. But they seem to be good racers, as you'll see...
3. Next stop: Suntec City, home of the lamest Roadblock ever. Detour's between running up and down the stairs of the two buildings, or dragging yourself on a zipline between the two building. Naturally, all of them took the zipline. It was around this point that I noticed that the Thai team was wearing yellow shirts in honor of the King's 80th birthday. (BTW, one member of the Thai team is none other than famous actress Paula Taylor. In fact, most of the teams have at least one member that is relatively known in their home country, for example, Marc is a sportscaster or something.)
4. Next, flying to the Philippines, and one route marker later, eating balut. You're probably familiar with this food as the food Denise wouldn't touch in Survivor: China, but Vanessa and Pamela breezed through this task to finish 1st for the leg. Like last season, the first leg was a non-elimination sparing HK's Monica and Edwin.

TARA2x02:
1. A domestic leg now, as the racers were told to take buses to some rural town. Some teams tried to get the buses to leave early (i.e., before they got full).
2. Roadblock was plowing a field with a buffalo, an attempt to replicate the whole "Colin's trouble with the ox" classic moment from TAR5. They did get some difficulties, but nowhere near the intensity of Colin's meltdown, and we didn't even get a reference to Colin. About the best we got was someone trying to ride the buffalo.
3. After the Roadblock, back to Manila, and time for some charity, and more product placement: The task involved picking up boxes of goods at a Caltex (gas station) and giving them to some church.
4. Detour in a market. Put together a bike, or sort shoes. Naturally, Paula Taylor and her friend picked shoes. The bike assembly was quite a challenge. Marc and Rovilson even put it together backwards (!)
5. That said, M/R still recovered quickly enough to get a 1st place on their home turf. HK team that finished last last week finished last again and got eliminated. Paula and friend got 2nd place, their best so far.

I'll put up the rest of the summaries later, as right now I'm a bit crunched for time.