Meghan and I got to CityChase at about 11:15 this morning, signed in, and put on our race shirts.
We went through the warm-up, they told us the rules, and then we had a countdown to the start of the race.
We all ran and grabbed clue sheets, then headed for the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs were three rental cars which would drive you directly to the first ChasePoint. Meghan and I were at the front of the pack when I tripped and fell down about 6 stairs. I caught myself and kept running, but by that time we had missed out on the cars, so we got on the bus to Central/Wan Chai.
The bus was packed with people and we had about 20 minutes to figure out where all of the clues were in the city. Meghan got on the phone and called people while I mapped it out. We had 10 points all lined up to do when the bus stopped at the Wan Chai Ferry Pier: across the street from the first ChasePoint.
This is when I came back to reality, and looked at my ankle. I managed to get off the bus, but I couldn't walk on it. Previously, Meghan and I had decided that we would rock-paper-scissors if we couldn't decide what to do at any point in the race. There was no need for the rock-paper-scissors. My ankle was actually fatter than my shoe at this point, so we called the emergency number they gave us. We ended up taking a taxi (illegal in the competition, very necessary at that point) to Heat Bar, which was another one of the clues. The medics came and looked at my ankle, and said I had just twisted it, so I should be fine in a few days. They wrapped it and gave me some ice to put on it, so I just had to sit there and rest for a bit.
We figured that we might as well make a day of it, so we got some lunch and watched everyone do the challenge. One team member had to run up into a giant fishtank on a truck filled with icewater, find bottlecaps scattered along the bottom, and then spell out HEAT in a bucket above the surface. The other person had to eat a little bowl of this ridiculously spicy noodle dish, and then find someone else to eat the other. Meghan and I ended up eating one bowl each for other teams while we sat there.
I still couldn't walk on it at about 4:00, so we had to take a taxi all the way home. The taxi driver asked us, Why don't you take the train?! ... as if we really wanted to spend HK$300 on a ride home.
It's actually quite amusing in retrospect. We didn't spend any money to enter in to the contest, and we walked [read: limped] away with a free backpack and a crazy story.
I guess the gelato will have to wait.
whoops.
