Today was the big China race leg! At 1pm China time Eugene gave us a list of 8 places written in Chinese and English that we had to reach. The stops included a tram up a mountain, 2 parks, a restraunt, a zoo, a mosque, a furniture market, and Eugene’s house, where we had a mandatory 30 minute stop.
As Eugene handed us the list, we rushed out the door of the hotel and crammed all 5 of us into the first taxi we saw. We pointed to the place on the top of the list to get us going. We arrived the same time as the Lime team at the tram, which we were required to take to the top for our stop.
On the way to that stop we strategized that Ashley would stay in the taxi (because only 4 were required to race) and try to figure out the best route to get to the 7 remaining places. Luckily we had bought a city map a few hours earlier because it wasn’t long before she had a crowd of Chinese people huddled around the map marking the places for us with numbers we could read.
While Ashley was getting the down low on the town, the Lime team and us got to the top of the mountain. After taking our picture at the peak, we didn’t want to wait on the tram to go back down so we ran down the mountain after the Lime team. By the time we reached the bottom, Ashley had our entire route mapped out!
We raced to all the other places leaving Eugene’s house for last. Our taxi driver, I’m pretty sure, knew we were in a race and drove us very quickly to all the right spots. We would pile out, take a picture, and jump back in our over crowded taxi…it was crazy! Finally we got to Eugene’s house on the list. We weren’t quite sure our taxi driver knew where to go, but he took us to the right place, and we ran through the appartment complex to find the right one.
As we knocked on Eugene’s door, we were happy to see we were the first team there. I ran back to tell Ashley to pay the driver and come in. We started our 30 minute timer and anxiously waited to see if any other teams would show up. 8 minutes later the Lime team arrived and then 1 minute after them the Blue team. We began to get nervous as they had told their taxi drivers to wait for them. We would have to run about 1/4 of a mile to get to the street and catch another one. We also weren’t sure if they had already gone to all the other places.
The 30 minutes seemed an eternity as we sat anxiously watching the clock tick. By the time we left all 5 teams had arrived. When the clock hit 30 minutes, Gary and I raced down to the street to hail us a cab. Katherine carried our stuff so we could run quickly. This whole process took a few minutes out of our lead. Gary and I jumped in and drove back to pick up the rest of the crew.
Nervousness set in, knowing some of the other teams were leaving in about 3-4 minutes. We told our driver what hotel to take us to and hoped that no one else would catch up! As we pulled up to the hotel, we were happy to see we were the first ones back, clocking in at 2:50pm. We had won the China leg!!!
We waited for the other teams, wondering who would come in next. 7 minutes after us the Blue team arrived. The Brown team was in at 18 minutes after us, then the Yellow at 19 minutes, and the Lime at 20 minutes. Let’s just say this was a close one!!!
