The Amazing Race - Thai Won?

Sorry, Guys, I'm Not Happy to See You - Ep. 1210

It's the race for the final 3 and according to Nicolas, none of the main competitors are still in the race. Nicolas and Donald, Ronald and Christina, and Nathan and Jen have a 3 hour lead on TK and Rachel but the three leading teams get stalled right away at the first location, the Floating Garden, which opens at 10am (TK and Rachel get to depart the pit stop around 10:18am). Luckily, by the time TK and Rachel get going, they can't figure out that the Floating Garden is at the top of the building.

From there, the teams are off to Taipei, Taiwan (where Nathan can get Thai food!(?!?)) Ronald and Christina manage to get onto the first plane while everyone else bunches up on the next flight. Or at least, we think TK and Rachel do since they pop out of nowhere at the Taiwan immigration to join Nicholas and Donald and Nathan and Jen.

After finding the central train station in Taipei, they must take a train to Taichong to a place where one team member must take part in some stunt driving with a car on a see-saw and then in a jeep driving under water.

Phil: "If they are still alive when it's over..." Excuse me? Hahahahahhaha...

Rachel and TK manage to catch up and get to the challenge 2nd. Rachel chooses to do the challenge while laughing like a 3 year old girl.

Their speed bump is a Traditional Chinese Ritual of running through a bunch of lit fireworks aimed at them. What? What tradition is that? I've never heard of that.

Ronald and Christina are still far ahead as the other three teams bunch up onto the same train back to Taipei.

Man, Christina's Mandarin is pretty good. And she even knows how to read a bit as she figures out that the clue at the teahouse was at the bottom of the cup of tea they had to drink. This leads them to a clown night market for the clue leading to the detour called Fire or Earth.

Everyone chooses the earth task, to walk a 250 ft stretch of jagged rocks with bare feet TWICE.

It's Jen's birthday but Nathan and Jen continue to bicker. and bicker. and bicker... so much for a peaceful birthday.

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Plaza is the final pit stop before the end of the race. Ah, the memories of touring with hundreds of other university aged kids and taking a billion of pictures at the top of those steps with always that one poor sucker that got bombarded with all the cameras to take the group photos until they dropped a camera or two. (And no, I didn't drop any cameras. That wasn't me).

Ronald and Christina that have been just very precise with this leg of their race, manages to keep their lead and comes in 1st place again, with a humbled sounding Ronald elated to be in the finals with his daughter.

TK and Rachel manage to come from behind and land in 2nd place. So it's down to Nicolas and Donald or Nathan and Jen in the final spot, and with some usual brilliant editing, we find out at the last moment that Nicolas and Donald beat the odds to run up to Phil for third place. Oh thank god! Wow, two older people in the final leg! Two family teams!

alas, the bickering "perfect couple" are eliminated. I almost kinda feel sorry for Nathan even though it's Jen's birthday and neither take it well, but oh well. I don't really care for TK and Rachel and almost would have liked to see Nathan and Jen in the finals just to have a "bad guy" to root against but at least we know they can't win which is important.