Team Fish Jush

Hospis Malaysia's 5th Charity Hunt was our second attempt at treasure hunting. This time, our team name Fish Jush was coined - from a combo of parts of our names. Excited we were to enter this hunt, after a fun first experience at the KL Bar Treasure Hunt a few months back.

With barely 3 hours of sleep after a pretty late Friday night, I was awake even before my alarm buzzed, frantically getting ready for my pickup was at 5.15am. Thanks to the determination and persistence of my eager teamies, we arrived at the flagoff point as car no.3 in good time for the coveted early bird prize! It was well worth the effort as our Glibert (our trusted treasure hunting car) had the his picture in The Star the next day, as we were flagged off by OKT.

The hunt was from KL to the finishing point at Gopeng, with a hunting trail along the towns of Rawang, Bidor, Tapah and Kampar. Thereafter, an overnighter at a hotel at Cameron Highlands where prize-giving dinner was held.

Did we get smarter in these few months? This time round, the hunt was just as trilling and nail-biting as our previous hunt (this time, our computer crashed on us *argh!!*), but we felt that the questions were less stupefying and significantly easier... we were on a roll answering the questions and figuring out the treasures!!

Still, there were a few questions that got us dumbstruck. For example, The Question : "He sells Fords, perhaps?" We went with the answer "Michael something". Obvious choice, right? Who hasn't heard of a Michael that sells Fords?! Nope! The Answer : Focus Dispensary... [being a play on a Ford motorvehicle model] WTF!!! We went round and round a road of two blocks desperately trying to figure out the answers. At that point, with our eyes almost popping out of their sockets we could almost regurgitate all the names of the shops on those blocks!

At the end of the race, we managed to rock up to the finishing point well before cut-off time, and being like the 5th car to arrive. At the prize giving dinner, it was a great delight to hear team Fish Jush being called as 8th place winners, with 77 out of 90 points, losing to last year's grand prize winners on a tie-break. I felt really happy, for having done so well, but yet, i felt sad, as we could have done so much better (ie. 4th place) if only we could have managed to find and purchase the treasure we were looking for, and if only we gave the right answer which we had considered but disregarded as being too far fetched. Sigh! If only!!

Here are some tips on how to compete in a treasure hunt with style : 1. Girls, try to get the organisers to let you have a kiddies' tee-shirt. Even S size tees are waaay too big. Do manufacturers think that Malaysians are that fat? 2 . When you have identified a treasure, start locating it immediately. Don't wait! You may not find it at later stops. 3. Be wary of spies! When you have located a treasure, casually look around you for spies before you attempt to pickup and purchase the treasure. 4. if there are spies who won't budge from behind you, throw them off scent. Buy the treasure together with several other (incorrect) treasures.

I can't wait for the next treasure hunt!