Toyota Amazing Trails 2009 by Ee Wen

Thanks VK for inviting me here to let me blog about yesterday's hunt. The first is always the most memorable one. I posted the same thing on my own blog. So here's what I wrote.

Event: Toyota Amazing Trails 2009

Area covered: Shah Alam and Puchong (Flag off from UMW Toyota HQ and finished at The Marriott, Putrajaya)

Members: Chai KK, Margaret Sha, Lily Loh and Ee Wen Woo
Questions: 20
Treasures: 4
Challenges: 4
Road Safety Questions: 5

I marked my dad's 1st month of passing by taking part in a treasure hunt. I am sure he would love to see me participating in treasure hunts like he did. Of course, it would be nice if I could hunt with him. So dad, this is for you.

Treasure hunts seem different now. I remember treasure hunting being something which exercises your mind and not physically challenging you. Perhaps things have changed after more than 10 years of not being in the hunting scene.

Today was my debutant in treasure hunting. How did I like it? I enjoyed it very much!! Did I notice any differences? Of course there were and the most significant one would be the implementation of challenges. Yes, challenges are to spice up the fun in treasure hunting but I still prefer the old fashion way with more route questions.

Now here's what I thought about my debut hunt.

On Questions
The questions in this hunt were not as tough as I thought it would be. I am saying this not because I know how to hunt (which of course I don't) but it's because I could grasp what the questions were looking for and how to crack it in a short time.

I think such questions were good for beginners like me.
Here are some of the questions of the hunt and what I learned about them.

Q2: No Camry can be constructed without a strong alloy here.
Ans: MYCRON STEEL BERHAD

When I first looked at this question, I had no idea what the setters were looking for. Then my mentors guided me to solving it. Lesson time was 5 seconds. Here's what I got out of the 5 seconds.

CONSTRUCTED = anagram indicator
without a = drop the "A"

Drop the "a" in "No Camry" and anagram it = N O C M R Y = MYCRON

Steel = Strong alloy

Q5. What is called when you get a top and a kite, for instance?

Ans: HEADS Hair Methodology

Margaret mentioned that a similar question came out in a previous hunt so the lesson time for this one was even shorter. Lesson time was 3 seconds.

TOPS AND KITES = images at 5 and 50 cent coins
What do you call them? = HEADS

This tells me that the more you hunt, the better you get...I WANT TO HUNT MORE!!!

Q.12: Turnover with intensity?
Ans: Revenue Force Sdn Bhd

One of the toughies?
My dad once told me that there are 18 ways to solve a TH question (I stand corrected on the number). If it's not this way, then it can be that way, or that way or any other ways. Just pay attention to the indicators and hints carefully.

When we first looked at this question, we thought it could be anagram question as the word "TURN" is an anagram indicator. We then checked the synonyms for "INTENSITY".

There were 3 questions in the same sector. We found the first and third but couldn't spot this one. We got down from our car and joined other hunters in search for the answer. The heat and the terrible weekend jam at Puchong did not make the hunt for the answer any easier but definitely more challenging.

After strolling the sector for a few rounds, KK came to us and told us what he spotted and we immediately accepted it and left. The question wasn't a tough one but the signboard can be overlooked.

Lesson time for this question 2-3minutes including researching. Search time was around 5 mins or a bit more(?).

TURNOVER = REVENUE (no need for anagram)
INTENSITY = FORCE

Where is it? Here's a snap shot of it...



This one is to test one's spotting skill.

On Treasures
The treasures were also quite simple although the thing to think about was which one to submit when there are possible choices. There was a treasure that took us quite some time to figure out what the first clue and there was one which puzzled us on which one to hand in.

Here's one of them.

T2:
Shaking the local milk will yield this treasure.
But the kind in liquid form will not meet my pleasure.
Get it from the one that's famous for its Yellow Label brew.
And full points are yours from an intact box of ten that's new.

Shaking = anagram indicator

Anagram "THE" = TEH
Local Milk = SUSU

Yellow Label = Lipton

Here's the answer:


On Challenges
I always thought that treasure hunts are only questions and treasures. Now it includes challenges.

There were 4 challenges in this hunt and each was 10 points.
Challenge A:
An auto test challenge. A member will drive the latest TRD Sportivo on a trek. How to score points for this challenge? A minimum of 5 points were given to each team and the team will be scored according to the time you take to finish the course. Hit a cone, you'll get 5 seconds of penalty.

Challenge B:
"Moving Forward" was the title of the challenge. We thought it was to arrange the timeline of the cars that was being produced by UMW. Little do we know that it was to push some toy cars to score points. There were stickers on the floor with different colours and each colour represents a point; scores are from 1 to 4. Each team were given three cars and 90 seconds to finish the challenge.

Challenge C:
"What a feeling". A challenge which required touching/feeling things. Since it was an auto hunt the things that were given were auto parts. The participants were given 5 boxes and inside the boxes were parts like fuel cap, spark plug, oil filter and radiator cap. Participants would have to feel it and name the parts. The challenge was also a 90 seconds challenge.

Challenge D:
Participants were given a piece of paper with 5 pictures of parts of 5 Toyota models. The task was to match the pictures with the models. This one had no time limit like the rest of the challenges.

Example (I took this picture.)

Guess which model this picture belongs to:




On Road Safety
This is the part I get to learn something about driving. There were 5 questions about road safety and a couple of it had some things to do with Toyota cars.

Now here's one point that I learned.

When one intends to stop on the road shoulder, one should brake to almost a complete stop before turning off onto the road shoulder. Why?

Well do correct me if I am wrong. It's because the surface on the road differs and if you do not slow down to almost a complete stop you might swift and hit something. Hmmm...I am seriously not good in this. Gurujis, please advice.

On Results
I was actually surprised that we had a podium position due to the results of the challenges that we had. But with much prayers during tea time, we managed to get 3rd place. Kudos to Margaret and Lily on the "What a Feeling" challenge and KK for slalom-ing your way to 7 points.

About the prizes? Well I would love to have the 4th place prize (hehe) but then later I heard from my sis that our prize wasn't really that bad after all.

Do I still want to hunt?
YES!!!!!
(Hinting to the HRU members to take in this apprentice.)

There's just so much to learn and it's just the beginning.

Thanks KK, Margaret and Lily for a great day!!

The winners

Me and the team with our pillows

- Ee Wen -

---

Toyota Tribe Amazing Trails
(Maximum possible score: 130 pts)

1st: Chong Chuen Hwa, Julie Tan, Claire Chin, Goh Teck Koon (121)
2nd: Yeap Heng Boon, Pavananthan, Ho Mun Yee, Tommy Ng (118)
3rd: Chai Koh Khai, Margaret Sha, Lily Loh, Woo Ee Wen (117)
4th: Teh Boon Kai, Angie Teh, Sam Rahman, Ng Hui Hui (115)
5th: Jeffrey Wong, Viki Lim, Lim Kim Meng, Richard Ta (113)
6th: Shaun Kah, Tan Chee Chiew, Choi Juin Yi, Wong Yean Khong (110)
7th: Ong Khen Heng, Tan Eng Siang, Diana Foong, Wong Sze Lynn (107)
8th: Ismail Ibrahim, Mohammad Razip, Mohd Rozainal, Nuraiza Zaharin (107)
9th: Chan Heng Chiew, Tan Bee Bee, Adelyne Chan (101)
10th: Salehuddin Yusof, Ahmad Zahrol, Sharifah Nurlaila, Fong Chun Kit (99)