TARA 3 GALLERY OF SPOILERS and SPECULATIONS

We finally arrived in UB after passing the amazing race in Beijing. Visited Lotus Centre yesterday and were surprised and happy that some of the kids actually remembered our names. The staff and ger mothers were happy as well to remember us.

A U.K. volunteer was asking the kids to draw some pictures to represent Mongolia kids in an exhibition in Norway. The theme of the drawing is " I have a dream".

Oh dear, we can't seem to load the pictures here. Shall try to do it at a internet cafe the next time.

Hi guys,

sorry, just got your message today. I managed to get a couple pictures until they told me not to. I will put them on my blog in a few days. I cant remember the exact day but around the 20th or 21st I'd say. I saw them eating scorpions and some other sort of bug and puking them up. There were 2 asian teams I think. Also one girl threw up and another contestant said "Miss India Everyone!" I heard them reading a clue and it was in English. There was a father and son I believe who looked east indian. Everyone I heard talk sounded like they had American accents.

ask me anymore questions i'll try to help. expect the pictures in a few days

TUESDAY, 27 MAY 2008
Saigon surprise

I'm finally back from an exhausting week in Vietnam. I've never had so little sleep over an entire week and when I came back yesterday, I slept for 12 hours straight, and that wasn't enough.... I'm still tired!

But it wasn't exhausting entirely because of work , in between work we found time to hang loose and relax a little over alcohol and a few laughs. The alcoholic demon in me showed its horns and I managed to have late night drinks almost every other day at Q bar (the 2nd night we were there, we saw Amazing Race being filmed! I had to be restrained from running infront of the camera...)

The day the event ended, we managed to get more people to join us for drinks at Q bar and it was one C-R-A-Z-Y night! It just took a couple rounds of shots to get everyone silly, and surprise surprise, I was one of the last one standing - I put it down to my weak bladder and need to pee every few minutes, the alcohol just goes right thru me - and ended up having to drag one of the girls from the Thai team back to her hotel room because she couldn't even stand on her feet.

alenn_wafu wrote:Yeah Jon. Pokwang and Eugene Domingo are speculated across the boards to be the Filipino Representatives.

Actually, Pokwang is missing on Wowowee..

The pier where I saw Allan Wu.He's filming Amazing Race Asia there.. :)

Wednesday, May 28, 2008


The Land of Smiles



Northern Thailand has been one adventure after another and is certainly the highlight of my time in Asia.

The adventures started at the airport in Chiang Mai when three sets of couples ran past us, each trailed by a camera guy and an audio guy. We are pretty sure that they were part of the show The Amazing Race but when we asked them all one guy could say was "I don't know what you're talking about." Yeah, right.

So back to us...

On our first night in Chiang Mai we decided to take in a few matches of Muay Thai boxing. Going in we didn't know much about it and I'm still not sure I fully comprehend how one boxer wins. I'm pretty sure it has to do with how much contact he/she can make with feet, knees and fists. What we really weren't expecting was to see numerous bouts between what seemed like 8 year olds and quite a few young women. Nevertheless we enjoyed making small bets with the 3 guys next to us on who would win based entirely on looks and pre-fight rituals.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008


Post 217

Our 217th post is marked by Lice, yes you read right, we all have lice!



The creche phoned Fiona today to say she needs to pick-up Daniel as he has lice in his hair. turns out Emma and their friend Andrew plus another child had lice too. Seems there is very little that you can do avoid lice as the adults jump very easily to new people - it is not an issue as regards cleanliness etc. Anyhow, so we have all had shampoos and hair combing to get all the eggs etc. out. All our bedding and clothes have been washed and dried so hopefully we've nipped it in the bud. The various sources on the internet say it is quite difficult to eradicate. We'll see.



Both Fiona and I develop itches everywhere when we heard we may have lice - not a nice feeling. We probably missed the signs as we could not identify one if it fell into our hands with a big label "lice."



To change the topic, I hope you are all watching Amazing Race! They're in Vietnam and are visiting some of the places that we have a great affection for, namely the City of Hanoi and Halong Bay. Nice to see it all again - very special places and memories.



Tonight Emma found out how to walk down the steps into the lounge without crawling or holding onto things. We first noticed this after an attempt to go down resulted in her falling. Well, after that she did it like a natural - with lots of laughs to accompany each successful attempt. she always leads with her left foot. Daniel watched but made no real attempt - he'll be there in a few weeks.



Thank you for the messages of concern about the xenophobic attacks. We are quite safe as they are happening in the squatter settlements where more foreigners live as they cannot really get into the more established areas such as Soweto etc. Hence the conflict as the poorest of the poor live in these places. What is interesting to see is how ordinary people are helping the displaced foreigners. Ordinary people are contributing a great deal to help out. Maybe there is a heart out there!
Fiona is going to be contacting the various organisations so she can identify any baby twins etc. that could be helped on behalf of SAMBA - we have so much stuff that we have received from SAMBA that is waiting for a request.

Enjoy!

JonLover wrote:If we have to believe this statement from Raggededge:

Correct me if I'm wrong MAY is not considered as MID YEAR. Adding to this information, I was told that filming will start either last week of June or first week of July. Traditionally, in amazing race "bible" (US version) race should start at sunday. Franchise like amazing race asia usually follows this one. Season 2 started the race in July 1(which is Sunday!)

Then we can say that they started filming TARA 3 on 18 May 2008. Hmmm, Raggededge, you are giving me good spoilers,huh??



And can you confirm the e-mail I have recieved about the participation of two beauty queens. We all know that Natalie Glebova is fielded by Singha Beer, TARA major sponsor, to represent Thailand.

What is the truth about Sindhura Gadde, Miss India-World 2004, as one of the Indian contestants? Okay, Sindhura grew up in New Zeland.

I know you don't like the idea of mactor invasion in the show.

And, I got an info also on one of the "possible" Filipino teams.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
LIMA!!!

Landing on the ground in Lima was an overwhelming feeling of joy, yet it felt weird to think that I´m here this time without many people I know, and the fact that I couldn´t share it with many of the people that I know and love from back home. I know that God has a great plan for my time here and I´m very excited to see what that is.

When I got in last night, I had a really hard time finding the person that was picking me up from the airport. It was a little scary for a while. FINALLY I found them and we got back and moved into a hostal for a few nights. Tomorrow morning we will be leaving for a camp for the rest of the week where we will be doing some training. One thing that they told us that we were going to be doing that I´m very excited about is the Amazing race! It will be great!!!

I will write more later, I think I have someone waiting on me! Love you all DEARLY!!!

Natalie

Posted by Natalie at 4:55 PM

2 comments:


tigbeane said...

Hope all is going well for you. We really miss you. Were you talking about the Amazing Race the TV show? Interesting. What did you work out about food? Isn't that sad, I focus on TV and food..... Oh well. Stephen is surviving, got a good report from the doctor and he went back to work today. Again, we miss you!

May 29, 2008 10:38 PM

Here I am


May 19th 2008
by ARussell

Well... I'm here in Bangkok now

Got here around noon yesterday, the flight was long but could have been worse. We got in a taxi to Khao San Road, it's where pretty much all the tourists stay, and it is crazy....

(goes on to continue....)

So since today is a holiday that means no alcohol being served, so we're going to have to find something else to do... we heard from a girl that they sell scorpions to eat on the street at night, so maybe I'll have to see if I can find some of those, we might go see some Thai boxing we heard about also.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Land of Smiles

Northern Thailand has been one adventure after another and is certainly the highlight of my time in Asia.

The adventures started at the airport in Chiang Mai when three sets of couples ran past us, each trailed by a camera guy and an audio guy. We are pretty sure that they were part of the show The Amazing Race but when we asked them all one guy could say was "I don't know what you're talking about." Yeah, right.

Haven’t been updating because there’s no internet where I am staying. But have been enjoying myself a lot staying with Aunty Beeyong!


Hue to Hanoi

So I spent very little time in Hue. After the first day on the tour with Café on Thu Wheel, I decided I wanted to get to Hanoi quickly. I don’t know why, but like I told Ian, I got bad vibes in Hue. It feels unsafe, I can’t seem to get around with much ease.

I had wanted to take the first train the next morning to get to Hanoi, and the lovely receptionist and possibly boss rode to the train station to see if he could get a ticket for me at 2000h in the evening. Alas, the train is only mine to dream of. There was no ticket left for any of the trains the next day, so I settled for a bus ticket.

I went to the Citadel that afternoon since I have time. Went into the Imperial City. It was so-so, perhaps because I have no guide, perhaps I should have studied harder when we were studying Chinese influence in Vietnam then, anyhow, I saw Allan Wu. Then I realized that they were filming a leg of the Amazing Race Asia there. Haha. I walked past him nonchalantly. He’s no Takeshi Kaneshiro.
A team asked me for direction. I told them a very general direction. I hope they didn’t get lost, otherwise I would always be that cursed Asian tourist. Haha.

I went back to the hotel for lunch. The hotel has lovely lovely staff. I reckon they are family/friends. I ate a lot, because I know I would get motion sickness if I didn’t. I brought my half-eaten Oreo onboard too.

Since the journey to Hanoi should be twelve hours, I was rather worried that I would reach Hanoi early in the morn. What a nuisance/annoyance that would be if I were to knock at Uncle Mike and Aunty B’s house at 6am in the morn. So I devised my breakfast plans in order not to reach too early.

The bus has to be the worse I have taken throughout my entire journey. They switched off the a/c during the trip. It became really hot and stuffy. The Caucasian couple in the seats in front of me opened the window. What a relief. However, even when the a/c was switched on again, they didn’t close the window. There were parts of the journey where it stank quite badly.

This time the sleeper bus was quite different from the previous one I took. This one doesn’t have individual ‘bed’, but the beds were like normal seats extended. Though I had plenty of legroom this time round, I hate the fact that someone was sleeping so close to me by my side. Despite the heat, I slept in my sleeping bag to avoid being touched or touching people. I had prayed so hard that it would either be a good-looking guy or a lady who’s next to me, but it was the back-up bus driver instead.

The bus stopped a lot, either for pee-break or for people to alight or to board. There were times where the bus moved at a snail’s pace because of the heavy traffic before dawn. What a surprise!

By 9am we weren’t in Hanoi yet. And when we finally reached, they dropped us at the outskirts. I didn’t want to enter just any cars, so I asked this German gentleman and his Indonesian companion if I could hop into the same car and head for the same destination as they were. The German gentleman is a very pleasant man, knowing that I was traveling alone, he came by to check on me once in a while. The lady, less friendly, studied German linguistics and is now lecturing in that subject in a university in Germany.

Reached the Old Quarters, well, it’s familiar territory since the first hostel I stayed was in that area, I heaved a sigh of relief. Bid farewell, went to get stuff for Uncle Mike and Aunty B since I didn’t want to go to their house empty handed. Enquired about my destination with the tourist office, and they called a taxi for me. The muffins were expensive, $2.50 each, and I don’t think they were that tasty. Uncle Mike said they tasted like cookies.

Reached their place but they weren’t around. Their helpers led me to the place I was going to stay. I was to stay at their friend’s house while she’s not around. The house’s lovely, and guess what, their friend is unaware that someone is staying. Quite cool right? You leave your house keys with your neighbour and you allow them to host their friends there. I suppose they are really good friends.

Seeing Uncle Mike, Aunty B, Peace and Daniel was great! While it signified the end of my traveling, it felt like going home.

Talking to Aunty B is inspiring.

Studying? at the airport...
Sunday, June 01, 2008, 11:40 AM


Wondering why I put a question mark after studying? Oh well, I went studying with my classmates at the airport yesterday and we did not really study at all did we? At first they set the time to meet at 11.30am but later changed it to 2.00pm then to 2.30pm, lastly I reached there at 3.30pm. Then we studied in the T2 mac, the table was really very small and amanda was cursing the group behind us, they were taking one big table to play cards when the table could be useful to us. But we got another table so it was still ok, I was so tempted with the food and went to eat instead. Phoebe had a cough but was very tempted for mcspicy, I told her just eat because no one could withstand the greatness of mcspicy, but the typical mother devien was nagging all the way to tell phoebe not to eat and say that I am a bad influence to phoebe. In the end, phoebe went to get mcspicy meal with a mcflury.


We wanted to study after that but all of them just take out their laptops and starting surfing the net. It was like 6pm already and we did not do anything. Later, the manager came to chase us off because there was not enough seats for the customers. So we went to the viewing mall to study instead. When we reached there we saw celebrities!!! We saw allan wu and his wife and childen. Phoebe was admiring them and called them the perfect family. Quite true, the father was playing with the kids while the mother was sitting down laughing at them. We took out our books and started, after about 10-15 min, I started playing slime soccer using amanda's laptop. We kept playing till her laptop went out of battery. Devien was like watching animae behind us, we did not bother her and phoebe me and amanda went to take photos together and looking at friendster till about 8pm.


We went to T3 for dinner and it was s filled with people. Some people are just so not considerate, we were waiting for their seats and they just keep eating so slowly. Then went to candy empire as they wanted to get some sweets, I had lots of fun playing with the jelly beans can although it made me look stupid. I cannot stand devien and baoyi, they wanted to take the new 34 bus instead of the usual ones because it is nicer. Haha.

alenn_wafu wrote:OMG So it is really confirmed that TARA3 is started filming/ or done filming now!