Putrajaya Treasure Hunt (29 July 07)

The group of friends that I knew during Penang Bridge Run was looking for people to participate in the Putrajaya treasure hunt. I decided to join them since I never participate in the treasure hunt event before. Eventually, 2 teams are signed up. Each team consists of 4 persons. Ding, Yan Nee, Wei Chun and I are in the same team. Ding is the driver, Wei Chun is map reader and navigator, Yan Nee and I are communicator. Hui Meia, Chak, Keen Yee and Sew Yong are another team. Hui Meia is the driver, Chak is the navigator, Keen Yee and Sew Yong are communicator. Each of us plays an important role in the hunt. Team work is always very important. :D

A day before the actual event, we went to Putrajaya to collect the goodies bag and attend the briefing. Each participant is given a goodies bag with a t-shirt, participant tag, cap, a pen and tourism Malaysia booklet. Each team is given RM20 petrol voucher and required to buy a Putrajaya map with RM5. In open category, there are 100 cars participated. For closed category, there are more than 100 cars. In the briefing, we had been informed that the treasure hunt consists of 2 parts. First part, we have to drive to the location given according to co-ordinate and perform the task. 2nd part, we have to answer the treasure hunt questions and buy the treasures. We had been warned that handphone, camera, PDA, dictionary are all not allowed in part 1. The team will be disqualified if caught by marshals. After briefing, we drove around to get familiar with the places in Putrajaya.

Sunday 5.45am, Ding, Chak, Yan Nee, Keen Yee and I are in front of Keen Yee’s house, tried to put the stickers of sponsors on Ding’s car. The car needs to be ready with the stickers before queuing up for the flag off. Suddenly, rain started to pour. We quickly put all the stickers on and proceed our way to Putrajaya. One of the sticker flew away on the way. The car emergency break, then Chak went down to collect back the sticker. Luckily it’s very early in the morning, there is no car there except us. We arrived about 6.20am, lined up at the end of first row. There are about 20 cars in each row. Free breakfast (coffee and cereal with milk) is served. As rain was still pouring, we stayed under the tents while waiting for the event to start. Hui Meia and others came afterwards and line up almost at the end of second row.

7.30am, we had another short briefing. Then 8am, the organizer started to flag off the cars. All of us are very excited. In the first part of treasure hunt, we will need to go to 5 locations (A-E) and perform the task. Location A-C are opened at the same time. So, hunters can choose to go to which location first. We find out the location according to co-ordinate given, and then choose to go location A first which is Equestrian Park. At Equestrian park, 10 pictures of the interesting places in Malaysia are displayed. We are required to write down the state it located.

After complete the task, we get the chop from the organizer and proceed to location C – Taman Wawasan. At here, pictures of Malaysia’s Prime Ministers are shown. The task is to write down from which year to which year they become the Prime Minister of Malaysia. We are all not good in history, even cannot recognize correctly which person is Tunku Abdul Razak and Tun Hussein Onn. :p

After that, we went to location B (Laman Duta) and the task is to match the National day logo from 1998 – 2007 with it’s theme. After we got the chop from location A-C, we need to go location D – Yayasan Kepimpinan Perdana. This place cannot be found in the map. So, we spent quite sometime to drive around, checked the signboard and finally found the place. At here, we are given a set of questions about our country history. Luckily all answers can be found in this place. At last, we checked in at location E - Taman Pancarona. The final task of part 1 is to re-arrange the characters given and list down the name of the ministers. 10 groups of characters are given. We spent around 1 hour there. Wei Chun is very good at this task. The most incredible thing is we simply put a name for a question that we are not able to get answer and we got it right!! I guess I will not forget who our tourism minister is now. Hahaha…. Generally, I think we did quite well in this part 1. Strategy and teamwork is very important in this part 1. Ehem……friends, you knew what I mean. ;)

The part 2 of the treasure hunt started at 1pm at Alamanda, Putrajaya. We are required to answer the questions, buy the treasures according to the clue. Teams have to submit their answer sheets and hand in the treasures they bought by 2.30pm. 15 minutes penalty time will be given. 1 point will be minus for every 5 minutes after 2.30pm. We have no problem to identify the treasures but those treasure hunt questions really give us the difficult time. For regular hunters, they know the technique to interpret and answer these questions. They also know how to find the answers from the clue given. We tried our best to answer all questions. It’s almost like the examination, if really clueless, just simply put in one of the shop name as answer. Other participants will also cover their answer sheets, wouldn’t share any of the information or probably give wrong information to other teams. It’s almost 2.30pm, we all quickly filled in all the answers and rushed to submit the answer sheets and handed over the treasures. No penalty for us. The treasure hunt was ended. We all went back for rest and came back at night for the dinner and prize giving ceremony.

The dinner started at 8.30pm. I believe the top 20 teams that won the cash prizes are all regular hunters. The organizer then gave us the answers of all the treasure hunt questions. Eg:
1. Question : Jails.
Answer: NewsNow.
Explanation: Jails can be re-arranged become “Salji”. In Malay, “Salji” means Snow. There is word snow inside “NewsNow”.
2. Question : Dalam gazebo ni ada apa yang dicari.
Answer : Bonia.
Explanation : « gazebo ni ada »
3. Question : Gambar kemerdekaan sebahagian sahaja kelihatan.
Answer : Fotokem
Explanation : Gambar => Foto , take part of the « kemerdekaan » => kem , so become FOTOKEM
4. Question: Small testimony regarding money?
Answer: mini statement @ CIMB bank ATM
Explanation: Small can be interpreted to mini; testimony can be interpreted to statement. ATM machine is something about money. At the screen of CIMB ATM machine, there is an option call mini statement. So, combine all the clues, answer is mini statement @ CIMB ATM

We really couldn’t figure out those tricky questions. Anyway, we still can answer some of the questions correctly. Eg:

a) Question: Kacukan durian Perak
Answer: Guardian
Explanation: We tried to find the word “durian” in any of the shop name. So, we found durian in "Guardian" .
b) Question: Jalan untuk menjadi jutawan?
Answer: First Millionaire Avenue Money Changer
Explanation: Jutawan => Millionaire, Jalan => Avenue
c) Question: 1st head master transformed
Answer: Hamster London
Explanation: 1st head => H , combine with the re-arrangement of the word “master” becomes “Hamster”. There is a shop call Hamster London.
d) Question: Old speed indicator related to the boycott of Harry Porter
Answer: MPH Bookstores
Explanation: Old speed indicator => MPH. There are Harry Porter books at the display window of MPH Bookstores.

The dinner and ceremony ended around 10.30pm. Although we didn’t win any prizes, we did enjoy this event very much. We had a lot of fun and it’s definitely a wonderful experience for us.