I guess I need to sit down and do this. But by writing it – it puts an end to the race. WAH! Not ready for it to end. And I have to wait for the next race of which I have no clue of when that will be aired. So needless to say, I am not a happy camper. But the hippies won and I am happy for them but to be honest and entirely in the minority - I must confess I was rooting for the frat boys to win.  But I’m still glad they won – they played the kinda race that I liked to watch. Forever up, not too much backstabbing and fun to watch. Let’s get on with the synopsis.
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At the pit stop the hippies were the first to leave and they had about a 2hour head start on the frat boys and Ray & Yolanda. They were able to leave at 11:18pm with the other two teams leaving 1:21am and 1:28am. Their clues took them about 75miles away to Royal Kraal. They were to retrieve from an elephant a T-Mobile Sidekick. The Sidekicks had the next clue. As most locations opening and closing times had a way of taking the time advantage from the teams and this was no different. The Royal Kraal opened at 4am in the morning so the other two teams caught up with the hippies. Once the gates opened the teams ran to the elephants and got their Sidekicks from the elephants’ trunks. The teams then read from the Sidekick where their next clue was taking them. They were going to Tokyo.Â
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They were to fly to Tokyo and go to Shibuya, which is like Times Square with a bunch of electronic billboards. Once they got there they were to locate the next clue on one of the billboards.  The hippies having the distinct advantage here since Tyler is fluent in Japanese due to his Japanese girlfriend, got dealt a setback when they were unable to catch the same flight out as the frat boys and Ray & Yolanda. Their flight came in 2 hours later than the other teams.  Once the teams landed in Tokyo they had to take a shuttle to the Nikko Hotel to pick up a car. At the hotel Ray & Yolanda immediately jumped into a car and took off whereas Eric & Jeremy, using their heads, went into the hotel and asked for directions and were given a map. They were able to find Shibuya easily where Ray & Yolanda struggled reading the road signs and locating Shibuya. Finding Shibuya, Eric & Jeremy scanned the billboards and found their clue which had them locate a beloved dog statue to retrieve their next clue which turned out to be a Detour.Â
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The Detour had 2 tasks, one was called Maiden Voyage. It had the teams go by taxi 7 miles to a Japanese garden where they were to transport a maiden 1-mile to a tea ceremony. The teams had to use this ancient transportation carrier called a palanquin that was used to carry royalty. The other task, Messenger had the teams finding these folding bikes and each person got a messenger bag with a parcel in each. After assembling the bikes the teams would ride through Tokyo traffic to deliver these packages. They had to find the building listed on the packages.Â
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Eric & Jeremy and Ray & Yolanda opted to carry the maiden to the tea ceremony. It was not a comfortable trip since they had to carry these palanquin on their shoulders for a mile, but each team figured this was the best thing to do rather then try to brave the Tokyo traffic and not knowing the language it would be easier than trying to find the buildings. They were able to accomplish it and get their next clue.
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The hippies decided to do the messenger task figuring it should be rather easy since Tyler speaks the language.  This was proven true after assembling the bikes and biking through the traffic. Tyler was able to locate the first building and give the parcel to the person and asking for directions to the next building. They were able to complete this task quickly with no fuss and got their next clue, which directed them to find the Capsule Land Hotel. It turned out that they were to stay in these space ship type of sleeping compartments for the evening before beginning the next segment of the race. In the morning the teams were given their next clue in the order in which they checked in with 15min intervals between their departures. Eric & Jeremy were able to get their clue first with BJ & Tyler leaving 2nd and Ray &Yolanda leaving 3rd. They were directed to go to Fujikyo Highlands 80 miles away.Â
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Fujikyo Highlands is an amusement park and it became a Roadblock. After arriving at the park they found the clue box and discovered that one team member was to ride 3 designated roller coasters and try to find a man holding a sign during one of the rides. They would need to read the sign and remember it and report it back to a guy and if they got it correct they got their next clue. The frat boys and the hippies arriving at the park simultaneously had to ride the roller coasters together. Tyler and Jeremy were the designated riders and took off on the first coaster and didn’t see anything and then there were off to ride the second one. Tyler thought he’d mess with Jeremy and said he saw the man during the 2nd ride. Jeremy not seeing him started to panic and thought he might have to ride the coasters again. So they moved onto the 3rd ride and they both spied the sign and were able to repeat the message to the man and get their clue. Jeremy after realizing that Tyler tried to mess with him pretended to be angry. Now the race was on since both teams were even and both headed to the same destination, Lake Yamanaka and the pit stop. They drove to the lake and had to peddle these swan boats out to the middle of the lake to a bigger swan boat. BJ & Tyler were the first to arrive followed very closely by Eric & Jeremy. Ray & Yolanda arriving later lost all their possessions but were not eliminated allowing them to participate in the final leg.
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The next morning BJ & Tyler leaving at 12:18am got their clue and it directed them to get to the Hotel Nikko to take a shuttle to the airport. When BJ & Tyler got to the hotel they asked to use the internet to secure a flight to Alaska. They asked the desk personnel to tell the other teams there was no internet connectivity in the hotel. When Eric & Jeremy arrived they asked and were told no internet so they found a phone and were able to get a flight that left earlier than BJ & Eric, but that really didn’t matter in the long run since everyone got bunched together in Taipei. Once in Alaska everyone was even.Â
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Landing in snowy Anchorage they teams got their clues on their vehicles and took off for Mirror Lake about 30 miles away in the snow. Mirror Lake turned out to be a Detour, which had 2 tasks but since it was so snowy they could not do the second task. The frat boys and the hippies arrived together and Ray & Yolanda had another directional malfunction which prohibited them from being competitive in these final tasks. So from here on end they might not get mentioned much. Anyway the 2 tasks for the Detour were Drill It and Deliver It. In Drill It they teams had to drill 10 holes in the ice on the lake and then push a fishing shack over 2 of the holes to set up a ice fishing camp. In Delivery It the teams were to load a bush plane full of medical supplies and then once that was done get on the plane to deliver the supplies. They were supposed to guide the pilot to the airfield using maps so the first aid supplies can be delivered. But as I stated earlier none of the teams could do this due to the inclement weather. Ray & Yolanda were the only team to want to do this but had to do the drill it instead. The frat boys and hippies were neck and neck during this task but the frat boys completed it first and got the clue to the next destination.Â
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The next destination proved to be another wilderness task. They were to go to Kincaid Park to don some snow shoes and using a map find their next clue. The frat boys being the first team there were able to find the shoes and the clue in what appeared to be rather quick interval. The hippies were not so lucky. They totally bypassed the snowshoes and ran around the lodge looking for them. They finally found them after a few passes around the lodge. They put on the shoes and using the map found the clue location and got their next destination, Denver.
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Denver, back to where the race started. The frat boys and hippies hustled on over to the airport to book flights to Colorado. But again, the airport being the big equalizer that it can be, came through for Ray & Yolanda and allowed them to catch up to the frat boys and hippies. Everyone flew on the same flight to Denver and made their way to Golden where they had to search for the next clue. The frat boys and hippies found the clue and it directed them back to the future, their future millions. (how dramatic!)
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With Ray & Yolanda out of the race to the finish, the frat boys got to the amphitheater first and had to complete the final task, which was to put country flags in the order of the visitation during the race. This proved to be difficult and to make it even more difficult the show had some bogus flags interspersed with the real flags. Even though the frat boys were in the lead, the hippies managed to get the flags ordered correctly and were able to run to the finish and claim the million-dollar check. It was a good and exciting race and I will surely miss the show until it comes back on the next time.
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Again, I will reiterate I was voting for the frat boys, my son was voting for the hippies and we both vote for more shows!Â
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Posted by deeteebee in The Amazing Race