The Amazing Race 17--Episode 10--Nick Shows His True Colors

After the most exciting and exotic episode of season 17 of The Amazing Race, we returned to familiar terrority this week--Hong Kong, a city we've been too at least three or four times, and one I've actually been to once. I distinctly remember a leg in this city in season two when teams had to find the White Star Line ferry and then find a fortune teller in a crowded market. Then in the season with the Asian-American father/daughter team weren't they here again and didn't they have to chauffeur some people and then find a real bouquet amid a store full of fakes? Or was that Tokyo? If I had my book about the Amazing Race--"My Ox Is Broken"--I could look it up, but I left it upstate.

Anyway, the main take-away from Episode 10 is that Nick is a jerk. At first I kinda liked this team because they didn't take themselves too seriously and admitted they were dumber than a bag of hammers. But then Nick started getting crankypants and nasty to Vicki. This week was too much, after bawling her out for missing the ferry because of her ashthma, laughing when Claire threw up, letting Vicki do all the work of eating all that sushi, he basically gave up on the sampan challenge and went to sleep leaving Vicki to keep searching for the number matching their bird cage. He quit just like Sarah Palin while his poor girlfriend who did not give up even after tossing her cookies, was still trying. I knew it was a non-elimination leg because there were still two episodes left before the finale, so the ending of this episode came as no surprise. They will probably luck out and there will be some kind of time equalizer in Korea. Nick is wrong; they are the luckiest team on the race. This is the second time they were saved because of a non-elimination. They will have to fly to get to Seoul, it's not a long flight. I took it when my Dad and I were on our big around-the-world trip in 1996.

Other observations this week: Jill and Thomas have NOTHING to be ashamed of for U-turning Brooke and Claire. Thomas is right, it's all part of the game and Team Home Shopping should take it as a compliment that they were seen as such a threat. Jill and Thomas made a serious mistake by taking the trolley rather than the sampan, but they realized their mistake and took the other roadblock quickly. I knew it would be harder to find three neon signs amid the glittering jungle of Hong Kong rather than locating a series of numbers on all those boats. That's only one serial number instead of three clues and you don't even know what you're looking for.
I think it's going to come down to Jill and Thomas vs. Nat and Kat. Claire will hold Brooke back.

Day 18--Wait for night flight from Dhaka to Singapore to Hong Kong, leaves 8 PM.
Day 19--Arrive Hong Kong, probably mid-day, challenges into the the late night, 4AM for Nick and Vicki

Oh and BTW, if Bristol Palin were the best dancer on Dancing With the Stars, I would have said she deserved to win, but she wasn't so she deserved to lose, regardless of her family and politics.