The Amazing Internet Race!

Internet marketing is a great home business - you don’t have to travel if you don’t want to. But once in a while, it is lots of fun to step out of my dinky little room and get some fresh air! It’s really fun to hit the road with other Internet marketing buddies and participate in what we call the AMAZING INTERNET RACE!

RULES OF THE GAME

The Amazing Internet Race is a reality television game show in which teams of two race around the world in competition with other teams. Contestants strive to arrive first at the end of each leg of the race to avoid the possibility of elimination.

Contestants travel to and within multiple locations in a variety of transportation modes, including planes, taxis, rental cars, trains and boats. The clues in each leg point the teams to the next destination or direct them to perform a task, either together or by a single member.

Contestants

KHAI, Gobala, Edmund, Melvin, Vince, Dennis Sim

Season 1 - The World Internet Summit (SG)

Participating contestants - Khai, Gobala, Vince, Melvin & Edmund.

Transportation: Car, taxi, bus, MRT, more taxis, trams and lots of walking…

Starting location: Outside Gobala’s apartment

Summary:

The world Internet summit was the first trip we all traveled together.

Everyone gathered outside Gobala’s apartment because his apartment is smack in the middle!

(Actually, Edmund was waiting for us at JB - the neighbor of Singapore so he wasn’t in KL)

A police officer almost wrote me a ticket for parking illegally outside Gobala’s apartment even though Gobala, Melvin and I were standing next to my car (while waiting for Vince).

Heading off to JB

We stopped our car at Edmund’s house while Edmund’s mom drove half of our group to the bus station while the other group took a cab. We had Marrybrown for lunch.

A bus took us away from Malaysian soil into Singapore’s borders. After switching buses, we took an MRT (mass rail transit - Singapore’s train system) towards the train station closest to our hotel. After alighting the train, once again, we took two taxis towards our hotel.

Struggles

We were racing against time to reach the hotel (5 or 6pm) to check in. The journey towards our hotel took the entire day. After jumping from one vehicle to another, we finally made it.

Another leg of the race…

The Internet marketers were gathering at Sentosa Island. As our hotel was located far away from the MRT station, once again, we had to take two taxis to the nearest MRT station, ride the train, find a bus (which we failed to find) and finally take another taxi to Sentosa island. I think we had spent close to a thousand dollars on transportation alone.

Lesson Learnt:

As this was our first time traveling to Singapore together, we weren’t very sure how to get around. Taking MANY forms of transportation is NOT COOL…

Season 2 - SENDUSTO.US

Participating contestants - Vince, Gobala, Melvin (the 3 Malaysian Musketeers)

Transportation: everything including rented cars…

Starting location: KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport)

Summary:

Before the end of Season 1, these 3 musketeers decided to fund their trip to see Mike Filsaime with their infamous firesale. I wasn’t there on that trip, but I’m sure they were racing from one place to another for two and a half weeks.

These guys spent LOTS of money there. We jokingly told them to start another firesale while they were in us and call it:

SENDUSBACKTO.MY

Season 3 - The Internet Millionaire Incubator

Participating contestants - Khai, Vince and Dennis Sim. (Plus one stowaway - Edmund)

Transportation: Same as above but with less traveling time this time.

Starting location: Centerpoint

Summary:

We revisited our Singapore traveling days by going back to Singapore once again! This time, Vince is the speaker at one of the seminars so it is good to go for the seminar free of charge!

We drove to JB once again and had a deja vu experience until we stopped for lunch at Marrybrown only to realize it was closed! We made a comment - Marrybrown would make more money if we changed the name to JAMESBROWN… lol!

We also gained much more experience since our last trip so we managed to cut down on transportation (and thanks to Kelvin Yeo for the ride!)

Originally, Edmund wasn’t joining us at this seminar but decided to support us by tagging along and squeezing in to our hotel room (I never thought that having 4 people in one hotel room was convenient at all, so we pushed to beds together and Edmund had to sleep on the floor - when there’s a will, there’s a way)

Bloopers

The organizers didn’t recognize Vince. They didn’t know that he was one of the speakers and they told him to register at the counter (until much later). Thankfully, Vince is a very nice guy and he didn’t take offence at their ‘mistake’, haha!

Summary

Although this trip only lasted 2 days, we managed to save much more money on traveling and made it to the finish line in time. After we all came back, we practically slept the entire day due to exhaustion.

So… who wants to join us on our next trip?

Technorati tags: The Amazing Internet Race, Internet Marketing Seminars, WIS, Traveling, Running Around, Racing