We woke up to arrive at the National Library around 8am. Well, earlier since we hung around while waiting for things to be set up for the The Original Race by HIP Alliance. We registered with the team name “Adventure Crew”. Hah. Members include me (obviously), Mintea, Raven Silvers, Avariel and Joelyn.

We paid $5 to register which was pretty good actually cause we got a poncho, a bottle of water and AFTER everything, we received a goodie bag that has a $5 Borders voucher, files amongst other things. Anyway, briefing in the morning as we sat on the ground there.

One of the official speakers telling us instructions and stuff. When he called out to assign our controller to us, he said we were the biggest group and the lot of us went “!!!” because what did he mean by THAT? Then he amended by saying we had 5 members since others were like duos or trios. So yes, nice save mister!

Anywho our controller, Lily, was with us and we warned her that we were silly. Right. So anyway each team has a passport where you’d need to get a stamp after you completed the station. The first clue led us to Toa Payoh Library.

We may be crap at physical activities (well, if you read our previous adventures, you’d know) but we pretty much are knowledgeable in quizzes and riddles. The first game to finish the station was Taboo. We did it pretty quickly and then cam whored for the photographers there. For one thing, we also know much about copyright and trademarks.

It would be silly if we didn’t for it’s in our studies (if you haven’t known, we actually do media studies etc). We got our clue and onwards to our next destination!

Ok, we might sound a bit dramatic here but hey we know how to work in front of cameras and stuff. We can be such hams.

The second stop led us to Sim Lim Square. A place where there were lots of scammy shops! Very appropriate for this race since it’s about intellectual property etc. It showed us how to check for imitations etc. This stop was evil though because we were there in the MORNING. We needed to check the shops for the sticker with certified original software and stuff. Guess what, said shops were closed and you can’t see the stickers through grills.

Whoever did the organizing for this station during the preparation never took that into account, oh well. This was their first time doing a race though. Lost lots of time here due to that!

The third station was towards the Victoria theatre. We should know where considering we hang out mostly at the Arts House area for literary, museum and artistic things. Meanwhile, there were other races going on that Saturday. They had numbers and white t-shirts! Third stop had me singing Green Day to the rest since it suddenly hit me what it was. That station had has reading lines of mixed up lyrics to guess what song it was and I figured it was “Wake me up when September Ends”.

We skipped the fourth station because we lost lots of time at the Sim Lim station so off we went to the last destination which was Woodlands library. (A note: We pretty much know the location of most of the libraries in Singapore.) There, we had to do a written test (?!) on what copyright, trademarks etc are and then we headed to the basement.

And off we handed our booklet and got our goodie bags! I like the bag, it’s a cloth Animax bag with sexy anime characters on it. Besides that it had a very useful Velcro strap if you wanted to roll it up! I liked this feature most.

While the people tallied up the booklets and stuff, there were refreshments for all! It was nice and we got to drink a lot and eat some kueh. Also, I learned that fishballs aren’t really good for buffets because they kept rolling off the plate. Or maybe that’s just me since the rest didn’t have trouble balancing them.

I need practice with balls.

Then after refreshments and stuff, we got into the auditorium and sat down. At this point, we got pissy. No, we didn’t mind that we didn’t win (the prizes are pillows, Windows 7, anti virus software and other things) but it was because of the audio.

We so hope that who ever at the console wasn’t paid for his services and was just there as a volunteer because he was rubbish.

Like really.

We are good girls (generally) and wished to listen to the speech and such by the organizers but noooooooo, the audio was freaking annoying and we were glaring at the person who was at the console for:

1. The music was still playing in the background, you couldn’t make out what the speaker was saying.
2. Every time the speaker stopped saying anything, the guy pressed the button to play the music so it went like this, “And let us give a round of applause to the speaker bla bla” MUSIC PLAYS “..bla thank you bla” MUSIC PLAYS.
3. It was freaking annoying. You DON’T do this at ANY presentation since it was jarring and just irritated whoever was listening.

So thus, we were glaring at him and not being able to listen to the speech much at all and I was using telepa(the)tic powers to stop him from pressing the button and thinking, “Do I have to go over there and smack him off the console?”.

Yes, we were that irritated by it. ANYWAY, besides all that, our controller was lovely and it was fun going around places even if some of the courses needed to be tweaked. It’s a good first race by them so huzzah to that!

Those who had been reading my twitter (no, I’m not telling you what it is but it’s really easy to find anyway and I won’t tell you because if you follow me, you’d be spammed since I get really random) would have noticed me going “LE GASP!” at the latest initiative by the national library.

What is the Quest? The Quest is a story card game thingy with pretty artwork and well… You can check out their official site to know more.

You exchange your loan receipt of at least four books to get a pack of 3 cards! If you borrowed 6 books, you can get a limited edition file including instructions on how to play the game, I would think.

Heh, the pack is like an ang bao and the top is pretty sealed up good. I had to carefully peel off the top because I wanted to keep the pack without tearing it too much.

3 random cards! Now, you might be wondering why on earth do I want these cards anyway? For one thing, the ART IS BUGGING ME. It looks familiar somehow and I have a suspicion that I might either know the artist from the cosplay events I go to (there’s artist booths and all there that’s why) or that it’s from a company that I have heard of.

In any case, the art style and the girl really reminds me of Asami from Kouko Debut by Kazune Kawahara. Well, in one of promo pics on the website at least. The cards have pretty nice art and seriously who is drawing all 60 cards of this?

I would like to know and if anyone has INFO, just comment or email me.

So great. (Read that sarcastically, by the way.)

The storyline’s on the back of each of the cards and there’s 60 cards.

I have no idea how I am going to get it since this is by the library and not some ‘commercial’ entity and thus I won’t be able to actually BUY missing cards, would I?

Hopefully, there will be others who would post up their bits of story. Hmm, I might start up just an extra page somewhere to keep stock of the story and maybe with others who are online and want to know how the story goes!

Meanwhile, maybe when the other stuff are up on the main website, the credits of who the artist and the writer will be there!

OH RIGHT! Where to get these? Just go to the counter of the library and exchange your receipt there. All libraries are available except the one at the Esplanade! If you’re doing this, comment me and maybe we’ll try to join the story bits together!