Episode 10

Search

Episode 10 took place in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Matterhorn.  Teams were given the choice to Search or Rescue, and were flown by helicopter to the location of their challenge.  In Search, teams had to locate a mannequin buried under the snow using some type of beacon detector.  The device beeped and displayed numbers as the teams got closer to the correct location.  Then, they had to use shovels to free the mannequin from underneath about 4 feet of snow.

I really like the idea of a puzzle that makes you find something that is buried.  I suppose it’s the romantic idea of buried treasure.  I think I’d rather re-create this kind of puzzle on a beach with metal detectors!

Episode 9
There weren’t really any puzzle challenges this week, just a simple math problem that Gary and Mallory faced for their Speed Bump.

Interestingly, the Detour options this episode were basically the same as last episode:  carry stuff, or eat stuff.  This time, however, two teams did manage to complete the food challenge.

Episode 6

Tea Tasting

Episode 6 gave us one of the most grueling puzzle challenges so far in Season 18. Before leaving for India from China, teams had to visit a traditional tea shop and sample some tea. Though the task seemed pointless at the time, its purpose was revealed once the teams arrived in India. Teams were lead to a large room at city hall where a ridiculously long table had been set up, with hundreds and hundreds of bowls of tea resting on top. One member from each team had to find the tea they had tasted back in China (papaya-mango) amongst the hundreds of different bowls and flavors. It seems there must have been additional rule that when testing out a tea, or taking it to be verified, players had to drink the entire bowl (since no players were simply taking a sip of each kind). When a player thought they had the right bowl, they took it to a tea auctioneer for verification.

Needless to say, the players with a bad memory or bad luck suffered, forced to drink cup after cup of tea, to the point of nausea for some. Players commented that the more tea they drank, the more all of the flavors tasted the same. Several seemed to find the correct tea simply by luck and brute force.

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Episode 4

Episode 4 took the racers back to China.

Chinese Zodiac Mobile

One member of each team had to search through thousands of wooden charms, searching for the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.  Once they found all 12, the had to hang the charms on a mobile in the correct order.  This challenge reminded me a lot of the paper plane challenge from Episode 1, and a few teams really got frustrated in their search.

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No real puzzles this week on Amazing Race.  Just lots of being lost and cold in Japan!

My take on this week’s challenges…  if you have the choice between:

A)  A challenge where you have to search for something, and it is unclear how long it will take you to find that thing

or

B)  A challenge requiring you to do something physically exhausting/difficult, but you will likely be able to complete the challenge in a fixed amount of time

…pick B!  Don’t pick the one that leaves you searching in cold mud for hours and hours until the sun goes down, frustrating you more and more as each moment passes!  I can understand it for teams who didn’t think they could handle the physical challenge, but I guarantee you those people out in the mud for hours ended up much colder and much more mentally exhausted than the ones who chose the physical challenge (a sort of exercise ritual, and then standing under a freezing cold waterfall).

/end rant.

Last week’s episode was finishing up the first leg of the race in Australia, so there weren’t as many puzzle-like challenges as in episode 1.  The Detour of this leg had teams making Aboriginal art pieces (a rock mosaic or a traditional spray-painting), but those were more exhausting than puzzling.

Periodic Table Map

This was the one challenge that included any puzzling.  Teams had to dress up in kangaroo costumes (complete with bouncy shoes) and hop to the location of their next clue.  In order to find the next clue, they had to decipher a map:  a copy of the period table of elements, with two elements highlighted.  Once teams identified the two highlighted elements, they then had to recognize that the nearby street names were  named after elements, and then find the intersection where the streets named after the two highlighted elements cross.

It was fun to see which teams knew their periodic table.  It looked like the first bunch of teams simply asked a woman with a smartphone to look up the symbols online.  The group working with Kent and Vyxsin were in luck, as Kent was able to remember the elements instantly.  The rest of the teams basically followed the ones who were already on their way in the right direction.

Hopefully with a new leg of the race starting on Sunday (in Japan!) we’ll see some new puzzling challenges.

(P.S.  Puzzles could be a great way to help a young student memorize the table of elements!)