It's the end of September, and that means that the fall television season has started. And with a new television season comes a new Amazing Race. And a 2-hour episode to boot. YAY!!!!
This race started out in Los Angeles, and for the first time, there was a team eliminated at the starting line. Yikes! I felt bad for that team, but at least they were not one of the three teams that I picked for the pool I'm in. Yup, I joined an Amazing Race pool. There is no money involved, so it is perfectly legal. :) It was a bit difficult to pick teams just based on their pictures and bios on the website, but I picked Sam & Dan, Brian & Ericka and Herbert & Nathaniel. I won't spoil who was eliminated, but it came down to the wire for one of my teams. Eeeeeek!Anyway, as I mentioned, the race started out in Los Angeles, California. I got this great shot of LA, with Dodger Stadium in the foreground, from swan as an official Postcrossing card.
After the first challenge in LA that eliminated a team, the rest of the teams flew to Tokyo, Japan. I do have a wonderful shot of Tokyo that shows the Tokyo Tower (the team's first stop), but I have specific plans for it for a post later this week (most likely Thursday). So I will take inspiration from the first task in Tokyo. Japan is known for its outrageous game shows, and on the race, the contestants got to play Sushi Roulette. I would not have been good at this challenge, which involved eating a Wasabi Bomb (basically just a whole lot of wasabi) in under 2 minutes. I don't like spicy food, so that would have been a very hard challenge for me. I don't like sushi, either. Not to eat, anyway, but on a postcard I like it just fine. :) Thank you to shijia0619 for sending me this sushi card.

As a bonus, here is a card that I have had for over a year, but have not posted yet. It shows carved wooden dolls that are supposed to be towing a treasure boat. It was sent to my second account (the cards are sent to my office instead of my apartment) from nozomaro.
Because tonight's episode was 2 hours, there were actually two legs to the race. The second leg of the race took the racers from Tokyo, Japan to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Uh oh! I don't have any cards from Vietnam! And not only were they in Vietnam for this leg, it also appears they will be staying there for the next leg. And I don't have any postcards from the country after they leave Vietnam either! (Yes, I looked ahead). Fortunately, once they leave that next country, I have the rest of countries covered. But what to do, what to do. I guess I'll just have to see the tasks they perform and the locations they visit and see if I have something similar from another country.
In this case, their first task was to spread mud around a fruit tree (they got the racers messy early in the race this time). Fruit tree - that I can handle. Here is a card from chagb3 in Taiwan (I seem to be getting LOTS of cards from Taiwan lately) showing a banana tree. I almost had trouble figuring out which way was up on this card because of the funny way that bananas grown, but they I saw the man reading the newspaper in the background. Unless he is defying gravity (crap, now I have a song from Wicked going through my head), I have the picture the right way. :D
Ok, so that's all for tonight. I'm looking forward to another fun season on The Amazing Race, and to seeing the 3 teams that I picked as the final 3 teams! *crossing fingers* ;) Oops, I guess I just gave away that none of my teams were eliminated tonight. But that's not much of a spoiler, right? :D