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As we couldn’t take our own cameras along during the race, all photos shown here in this entry except for the last two - were taken using the N82 itself. During the race, we could only use one phone for uploading photos (SIM card provided by the organizers), so a little bit of strategy had to kick in here. Two in-car phone chargers were also provided for obvious reasons. The topics for the race were announced only around 5 minutes before the actual flag-off.

There were 8 Nissan Cefiros that were used as race vehicles - one for each team. We had to get back to 1U (our finish-line) in 5 and 1/2 hours’ time, and we wanted to cover 5 locations! In each car, there would be a driver, a cameraguy, a race marshal, and the two team members. Our cameraguy’s name was Desmond, our race marshal Eve, and our driver was Mr Ibrahim! Mr Ibrahim was an excellent driver because he knew almost the whole Klang Valley, including short cuts and all.

We first did the topic “Live Entertainment”, and we chose the Annexe at Central Market as our location for - well, supposingly - live entertainment. Unfortunately, the play that Pinkpau heard about was already over by the time we arrived that day! However, we found an underground rock concert which was being held on the third floor and took some photos outside the concert hall (no photography was allowed beyond the entrance).

For “Games”, we thought we could catch people playing Go-Kart at the popular Go-Kart track by the Elite Highway, the Speedzone track. Unfortunately (again - or fortunately, depends on how you look at it), there was no go-carting that day because they had a drifting event, where top drifters from around the world would race there that weekend. On that fateful day when we arrived, they had actually finished their practice session and was locking up the place…

But thanks to Pinkpau - who, sort of, came up with an idea which I hoped was a just a joke - we got to enter the garage area and even take photos with the Drifting World Champion, a Japanese racer whose name escaped me. Anyway, I really salute my partner. She worked her magic wonderfully. What else could you ask for from such an amazing partner?!!

For “Food”, we went to Jalan Peel’s Queen’s Restaurant, which has been operating since the 1960’s. The restaurant actually belonged to a relative, so we hogged the whole place taking photos and posing with foods. Haha. Having the cameraguy following us actually made it all look really real and serious, which was convenient… you know what I mean!

“Nightview” was a no-brainer. Although many other teams would have chosen the same location anyway, we still went ahead with the plan because we thought we could gamble on the quality of photos as well as the descriptions that go along with them. The location? I had just blogged about that place the previous month… so, directions-wise, there was no problem.

The photo above was taken with an N82, with post-processing done using Photoshop. Although it is a doctored image, the original capture has to be of good quality to begin with, right?? Btw, since all the photos were taken in maximum resolution (5-megapixel camera, you do the math… yes yes, we forgot to change the settings until about one hour before the time was up), the sizes were super-large, so uploading to the SOTN website via 3G was a pain. I had to manually resize the photos (and do some minor brightness-contrast adjustments) before uploading. Tedious, but better than getting a connection time-out!

Lastly, our bonus topic was “Shopping”. It was optional, but almost all teams went and did it. Pinkpau suggested the Pasar Malam in Taman Midah (happens every Saturday), to which I agreed, and also added that my por por actually lived there too! So I was very familiar with that place as well.

Throughout the whole journey back towards 1U, we were frantically down-sizing the photos and uploading them to the website via 3G. We were on the verge of a panic-attack because the 3G connection didn’t really like us. Or our phones. Or our photos. Whatever. We were 7th team to arrive at the final check point. The Red Team (pOp and Szetoo) were the heart-stopping 8th team to make it back to 1U!

Team Green (Suanie and Frankie) were the winners of the trip for 2 to Hong Kong (2 for each participant - that’s a total of 4 lah), plus a spending allowance of RM1,500 cash! The rest of us ordinary runners-up received Robinsons cash vouchers worth RM500 each (2/5 of which was used up just yesterday *Grins…*). The Nokia N82 has been duly given to Mom, because her old phone was the most low-tech among everyone else’s in the family ;p And I love my N95 too much!

Footnote: Thanks to Nokia and other sponsors for the great prizes!

Related Entries:

• The Nokia Wireless Adventure II Race (Part 2)
• The Nokia Wireless Adventure II Race (Part 1)
• Nokia N82 Wireless Adventure II - Soul of the Night
• Lookout Point and My New Lens