Silly Little Country

Amazing Race - April 26, 2009 - Live-Blog

(OK not live but TV-live.)
So we are down to 4 teams - a) Kisha and Jen, b) Tammy and Victor, c) Margie and Luke, d) Jaime and Cara.
Everybody is headed to Beijing to start off. Margie and Luke and Jen and Kisha are already getting into it again in the airport. Everybody seems to be on the same flight. Tammy and Victor are using their ability to speak in the native language to good effect, getting seats near the front of the plane and requesting that all the others be seated in the back. Margie is still ranting.
Everybody is heading for a foot massage palace. WTF?
Tammy does not like feet and is worried she will have to massage one.
Jaime and Cara somehow get there first (not having left the airport first). The task is to drink some Chinese tea and then take a somewhat brutal foot massage, and then drink another cup of tea. Apparently this massage hurts and asking for it to stop is a reset.
Kisha and Jen are second. Jaime and Kisha are the victims. The masseuses seem to be enjoying it as their victims are in agony. Tammy and Victor come next, seemingly not showing much advantage from local knowledge. Tammy is the victim and partway through wishes she was massaging someone else's foot.
Margie and Luke are last - the show is rarely clear about how far behind this puts them. Luke is the victim.
Jaime and Cara are off to a swim centre. Kisha and Jen too, but neither seem able to find a taxi driver who knows where it is. Tammy and Victor now as well. Everybody is now in a cab.
Tammy and Victor get to the right door first - others are going to the wrong door. The task is now either dive synchronously, or swim 8 lengths of the pool as a relay. Tammy and Victor decide to dive as they don't think they can swim. Kisha and Jen get there second and they cannot swim. How the hell do they recruit for this show? Do they not tell people there will be swimming? Jaime and Cara have to run around the building from the wrong door and are now in play. Kisha and Jen will try diving. Margie and Luke are on site and will swim.
Jaime and Cara are swimming, and, as I would expect of NFL cheerleaders, they appear capable of swimming. Luke can also swim. This gives the TV guys a chance to pretend they are covering the Olympics by putting names beside the swimmers.
I failed to mention the swimmers have to wear the super duper Speedo suits and apparently it constricts breathing.
Jaime and Cara are on the way now to the pit stop.
It looks as if the synchro divers will be there forever.
Margie and Luke are on their way to the pit stop.
Tammy and Victor switch to swimming. Kisha and Jen are in the midst of an existential crisis with one of them in tears. While the crying continues, Tammy and Victor are on their way now too. As Rondi observed last week, Margie does not seem to have a very attractive personality.
Meanwhile Victor is cramping seriously, as Kisha and Jen switch to swimming (in lifejackets!). With lifejackets why not pick that right away?
OK now we get the fakery of all the teams sitting nervously in their taxis. If a footrace like a marathon were covered this way would they show each individual and hide any notion relative position? Obnoxious.
Jaime and Cara reach the pit stop first and are told they are first and that the leg is not over! End of show. Huh?

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:03 PM