[If you watch, minor spoiler about tonight’s The Amazing Race in this post.]
Tonight was the second-to-last episode of The Amazing Race, the show that always makes me hear my as-yet-unused newly-renewed passport on my desk scream “Use me! Use me!”
To which I usually respond: “Okay, passport, go win the lottery, would ya?”
Best part: the shrill, annoying, these-two-don’t-work-together-as-a-couple were eliminated. This leaves three teams, all of which I’m perfectly happy to see win the race.
Even more interesting on the race tonight, which went through Taiwan, was one of the options none of the teams chose: a Chinese ritual of sending wish balloons into the air. In the activity, the participants write messages of luck, be it good or bad, on the side of large paper lanterns. They then burn “spirit money” inside the lanterns to send them aloft and carry their messages to the spirits above.
I’m not sure why, but for some reason this struck me as a particularly cool idea.
Now all I gotta do is learn how to make a large paper lantern…
The GeekHiker 
I’m happy with the final three as well though I kind of wanted the pseudo-goths to be in the mix as well. I’m surprised that two teams with older people are in the top three. In the past the Dads and Granddads never made it that far. (YESS! No more Nate and Jen!)
I wonder if the lantern festival is done during Chinese New Years that s coming up in February? I suppose in California it would be considered a fire hazard and would be forbidden though.
By: Homer-Dog on January 14, 2008
at 7:16 am