Amazing Race Sunday: Monday Edition

Sorry for the delay in posting. I crashed and burned last night before I could watch and recap. Onward!

Fly to Osaka, Japan (departure time)
TK & Rachel (1:25 pm), Nick & Don (1:33 pm), Ron & Christina (1:44 pm), Nate & Jen (2:38 pm)

The teams are getting smarter about using hotels and travel agents/internet to get their hotel reservations. TK/Rachel used a hotel travel agent, Ron/Christina went to a local travel agent.

6:55 pm via New Delhi and Beijing– TK/Rachel
8:25 pm via Hong Kong– Ron/Christina, Nate/Jen, Nate/Don

This obviously is where the scary teaser from last week comes into play. I think it was Jen who said “I don’t know what happened to TK and Rachel. We haven’t seen them all day!” The editors are continuing to play on this “who’s in first” theme, since they emphasized that TK and Rachel are making two connections on their way to Osaka while the other three teams make just one. That could easily eat up the 90-minute head start, or not. There’s no way to tell, since they haven’t time stamped anything since the teams ripped open their clues at the start of the leg.

2:30 pm, Nate/Jen, Ron/Christina, Nick/Don arrive in Osaka. Rats.

Christina speaks Japanese, which is always a huge bonus. Nate/Jen arrived at the castle first and were able to find the clue box first. Ron/Chris second. Nate/Don

Find: Cleaning Man at Noda Station
1. Nate/Jen, 2. Ron/Chris, 3. Nick/Don (still no sign of our fourth team. Damn.)

Road Block: Become a Taxi Driver
Seconds before revealing the clue, the first two teams talked about how awful driving in Japan would be.

Jen: Got totally lost and whiny. Big surprise
Christina: She was picked because she can speak Japanese, but apparently she’s a terrible driver. They said that both their hearts just dropped when they opened the clue. I’m pretty sure they silented out a “f^ck” from Christina. She apparently does not own a car in the US.
Nick: Had a great attitude and was actually pretty good with figuring things out.

Jen was first to drop off her passengers. Christina was second. Nick third
On the return, Jen was first, Christina second, Nick third … and lost. Still no sign of TK and Rachel at this point. Oy vey. Ooh! Airport! They landed half an hour into the edited show. That can’t be good unless there’s something ridiculous coming up. No time stamp on TK/Rachel’s arrival, which also can’t be a good thing. Nick arrived 10 minutes behind the first two teams.

We’re seeing almost nothing of TK/Rachel, which means that my favorite team is going to go the way of Azaria and Hendekea. Taken down by a travel decision.

Travel to Kita-Mido Temple
Nate/Jen first to arrive. Ron/Christina had a wheezing taxi driver who was a little scary but he got them there OK

Detour: Sense of Touch or Sense of Smell
Touch: Use mini-robots controlled by cell phones to play a game of soccer
Nick/Don – Nick said he couldn’t ID a real flower. This was hysterical. Don started swearing right away. The learning curve was pretty steep but they were able to get it done.

Smell: Flower shop, use nose to find one real flower around thousands (!!!) of fakes.
Nate/Jen – Jen says she has the nose of a bloodhound, but all the sniffing was making her lightheaded. They started downstairs then moved upstairs and started snarking at each other. They did find a real flower first.
Ron/Chris – Ron is starting to “get it” which is good. They were able to find their flower. Ron actually found it.
TK/Rachel also did this task with Rachel finding the flower

Christina’s ability with Japanese made a ton of difference with directions, and they noted on the way to the Pit Stop that Ron hadn’t lost his temper once the whole leg and they were just thrilled with each other. Maybe Ron is finally starting to “get it”

Pit Stop: Tempozan Park
1. Ron/Chris, 2. Nate/Jen, 3. Nick/Don. They started the swan song as we watched TK and Rachel go through all the steps for this leg of the race, and they used the whole time to voice over. They are obviously happy with each other and are just two even-keel people. 4. TK/Rachel.

Jen was still annoyed that that they didn’t win the leg. They can’t stop arguing, and Nate had a spectacular Freudian slip, saying that the best team was going to finish last (not that the best team was going to finish first on the last leg, which is what he claims he meant) Jen’s double-take was priceless.

GREAT NEWS! It’s a non-elimination leg. Phil tells us that TK and Rachel are almost three hours behind the other teams and will have a speed bump tomorrow. But we get to see them for another leg. Yay!

Knitting Content
Last night's Crash and Burn also derailed my plan to get Countess ready for a FO shoot. Maybe tomorrow. Sorry I don't have anything decent for today, but I've lost my entire morning waiting for the phone to ring. I got a call at 9:30 this morning from the softball people, and the person I talked to said that the big cheese would call me right back. That was two hours ago. ::sigh:: OK. Back to blog reading, then I need to Leaf Wrangle. Again. In January. This is insane. Wish me luck!