Hanging Out With The Amazing Race Asia 4 Contestants

I’ve been an Amazing Race/Amazing Race Asia fan for as long as I can remember, so you could just imagine how stoked I was to find an invite to meet the members of the two Philippine teams at the National Sports Bar in Greenbelt 3.

And yeah, this was going to be a promising evening, I thought to myself. First of all, I’m a huge fan of Team Jess & Lani– they’re cute, sassy and so much fun to watch on TV. And then, you also have Richard & Richard– quite possibly the strongest team in this season’s competition. It’s not everyday you get to meet some of your favorite TV personalities, so off I headed to Greenbelt 3.

From The Amazing Race Asia Season 4: Richard Hardin, Lani Pillinger and Richard Herrera, hanging out with me and fellow bloggers at National Sports Grill in Greenbelt 2.

Now, as of this writing, we’re 5 episodes into the 4th season of The Amazing Race (6, including the latest one), with 6 or 7 teams to go, including the teams of Jess & Lani, and Richard & Richard– and both our Philippine teams are performing rather well so far. It’s always good fun to catch it every week, and cheer your favorite teams along.

So as it turns out, the event was this viewing party with fellow bloggers, together with friends of the contestants (hey, it was their night after all) and the good people of AXN, and of course a meet-and-greet with Lani, Richard and Richard.

Lani Pillinger of Team Jess & Lani, mingling with the bloggers, sharing stories and all cool having her pic taken with everyone.

True enough, I walked into National Sports Grill (at the 3rd Level of Greenbelt 3, if you didn’t know), and the place was packed to the rafters.  Bloggers were already there, munching on bar chow with those nice beer towers at arm’s length, conveniently placed on every table.

Fellow blogger Dani staking her claim: one of National Sports Grill's ice-cold beer towers

Last week’s episode of The Amazing Race Asia was playing, shown off a screen in the center of the room, and going around pushing drinks, chatting with the bloggers, and essentially keeping the party going were Richard Hardin and Richard Herrera (TARA4 fans affectionately know them as “Richard & Richard”), and (representing my favorite team of the season) Lani Pillinger, half of Team “Jess & Lani”.

Lani Pillinger (of TARA4's Team Jess & Lani) was so adorable! Here she is, striking a pose with a starstruck Renzie.

Now, all you Jess & Lani fans were probably wondering: where was Jess this whole time, leaving Lani to fly solo for the night?  Lani said Jess went back home to Australia for a short while, but will definitely be back in time for their appearances in the coming weeks.

Naturally, we were all curious to know exactly what went down on The Amazing Race Asia itself.  You all might remember both Richards getting their heads shaved at some point in episode 4 (or was it 3?)– Richard Hardin had about a month-old growth of hair going on, though he said his hair probably grew faster than that, as a month hasn’t gone by yet since the team’s head-shaving incident at the Fast Forward.

TARA4's Lani, Richard and Richard keep the party going with a fun Q&A and awesome AXN/The Amazing Race Asia giveaways.

Try as we might to pry it out of them, none of the contestants could tell us who won The Amazing Race 4. As you all probably know, all contestants are bound by contract, preventing them from spilling the beans on the results (when did they get eliminated, or if they themselves already won the race), at least not until after the rest of the episodes go public.

What they did tell us was how much fun the entire experience was, and as we were all watching the live telecast of Episode 6 on AXN, we’d all get the occasional live commentary from the contestants as the rest of us cheered them on.

Noelle of kikayrunner.com scores herself a cool AXN premium item!

I personally think it was awesome that our country’s representatives to The Amazing Race Asia 4 were all generally pleasant. Yes, they’ve become celebrities virtually overnight, thanks to The Amazing Race Asia, but they were all essentially regular folks like you and me. All hanging out at National Sports Grill, having a good time with beers and friends. Plus, they made everyone feel so welcome– hopping from table to table, answering questions, having their pics taken.

It’s like our favorite TARA4 teams just got even more likeable. In fact, I’m adding them up on Facebook right after I finish this post. Then I’m catching the replay of this week’s episode on AXN to watch it all over again.

For everything you need to know about The Amazing Race Asia, check out the official site here.  Even better, go check out the page of Richard & Richard, and the page of Jess & Lani for bios, pics, updates and videos.  Pretty useful particularly so if you want to land a slot on upcoming seasons of The Amazing Race Asia– you could learn a thing or two from these guys.

Jess and Lani of The Amazing Race Asia Season 4

Richard & Richard of The Amazing Race Season 4

The Amazing Race Asia is now on its 4th Season, and you can catch a brand new episode every Thursday night on AXN.

Which Amazing Race Asia Season 4 team are you rooting for?

Say Goodbye to NU107, part 1 of 2

Yes, you read that correctly.  NU107, the Home of New Rock, that shining bastion of modern rock on Manila FM radio, is signing off for good on November 7, 2010.

Quite a shock, right?  I thought they’d last forever too, considering I remember listening to NU107 as far back as high school (in the late ’80′s).  Ah the awesome days of new wave.  Got a collection of new wave songs thanks to stations like XB102, BM105, 99.5RT, and hellz yeah, NU107.

Some of my fondest memories of high school includes those afternoons I hunkered down by our old cassette deck, ready to record those hard-to-find new wave songs on tape.  You couldn’t find most of those songs at the local record bars– The Sound’s “Total Recall”, “State of Art” by Friends Again, or “When Lightning Strikes” by Positive Noise.  At least the OPM gem “Golden Boy” by Ethnic Faces was included in a locally available compilation.

NU107 was one of the two stations I regularly listen to back in the day.  The other one was was 99.5RT (of which I had the privilege to work for from ’94 to ’96).  And even when I was boarding for RT, I still get to listen to NU– I’d dig those songs that NU would play that RT wouldn’t (though I’d noticed we had copies of those same songs anyway).  Off the top of my head, there was “I Got a Girl” by Tripping Daisy, Soul Asylum’s “Misery” and Cake’s “Rock & Roll Lifestyle”.

I got so nostalgic, I cued up a couple hundred songs on my player– songs which remind me so much of NU107, of me and my friends singing along to all those awesome rock & new wave songs, of me and my guitar strumming along, and even those memorable station promos they had.  Remember the promos for Zach and Joey in the morning sung to the tune of “Jesus Christ Superstar”?  Classic.

I swear that was Ron T.’s voice on that Malayan Insurance commercial that aired on TV just as I was wrapping up this blog post.  I’d recognize his voice anywhere.

Another post on NU107 coming up later on.  In the meantime, check out these insightful posts from our other radio friends elsewhere on the web:

• “Of Rock Music and Queen Bees”, by Claire Miranda, former station manager of NU107.
• “Biting The Bullet”, by Pinky Aseron, faculty member of the University of the Philippines, and former station manager of CityLite 88.3.
• Joyce Burton-Titular has a couple of posts on her blog, Adventures of a Beauty Queen: check them out here, and here.

Cheers, everyone!