PowerPuff Gals for Charity

Now I am embarrassed.
I know a few friends read this blog but to be told that on a certain morning can be quite unnerving (yes, BL, I mean you!). Especially on the morning of a certain treasure hunt. Ahem.
OK, embarrassment aside, I had a bloody grand time on Saturday during the Charis Hospice Charity Hunt with Ai Lee, Ming and Lerks.

And out of 58 teams, we got 4th place!
Imagine, with all the big guns of treasure hunts at our backs, we four gals actually won and each took home a Dell printer. I tell you, it was such beginner’s luck. And what a blast it was.

But I think it was our blase attitude/let’s play for fun/let’s not stress ourselves out which helped.
Lerks drove her Kelisa like a wild woman (man, I love her driving. She puts lots of love in her illegal u-turns and tight corner turns!) despite being a hunt virgin like Ai Lee. Now Ai Lee, bless her, was the ‘momma’ of our group – she bought us charsiew pau’s when we were hungry at the Chew Jetty.
Not having any real strategy helped too.
We didn’t get up that morning thinking, OK, we want to win this hunt. Nah, we were the only team who adamantly refused to wear the oversized sponsored shirts. We were the ones who did not go with laptops. We just went as we were, praying that our brains were enough to help us through.

But having Lerks and Ming, two Penangites, helped considerably. They knew all the short cuts through the housing estates. They knew stuff.

Lerks was smart enough to think like a typical Penangite – let’s go to the furthest point (Hill Railway Road where Penang Hill was) and work our way back to the inner city of Georgetown instead of the other way. This helped save us lots of time plus we even had time to stop for drinks at Ecco Cafe on Chulia Street to properly copy down our answers and brainstorm the last few answers before driving happily to Berjaya Georgetown Hotel to submit our answer sheets. This must be one of the most relaxed hunts I’ve ever been on!
The best thing about the hunt was the heritage sites we had to visit while deciphering road names and solving puzzles. I had never been to P.Ramlee’s kampung house and finally I did. I had never gone inside Fort Cornwallis and Chew Jetty (ok, that is embarrassing right?) until last Saturday.
And I never knew so many delicious facts about my little fair isle, the island I choose to call home for the past 15 years. I had never stared so hard at the cabinet interior at the Sun Yat Sen Penang base on Armenian Street. And I never knew Penang had so many beautiful, historical war memorials until then.

I also discovered many places where I would love to visit again, especially the little tea house where tea is brewed by the jug and you can sit down for a cup of Chinese pu-erh tea for as little as RM1.20! (By the way, that’s on King Street). And of course, I will never look at any war memorial or temple or clanhouse the same again.
My favourite question of the hunt?
“It lets a yacht refit here.”
I knew the answer immediately because the heritage site in question is located on a street I used to roam about. Plus I had visited the inside of this heritage site. (Answer: Cathay Hotel on Leith Street. Did you know that Leith Street is also called Lotus Flower River?)
See, I DO know my little island well! My great grandpa would be so darn proud!
(More photos over at my Facebook page….)