"I Survived a Japanese Game Show" - July 8, 2008 episode

This week's "stupid Americans" opening involved mama-san teaching the remaining contestants about tea and how to hold the tea cup, and she showed them how to make the tea. The variety was apparently a very strong, gritty version of green tea, so as she was serving it to the contestants and asking how they liked it, they were forcing smiles on their faces and then grimacing later about how awful it was.

The team contest this week involved a moving conveyor belt. Two team members pedaled stationary bicycles, and the faster they pedaled, the slower the conveyor belt moved. The other two team members each took a turn riding a tricycle on the conveyor belt, and their goal was to stay in the red section for as long as possible. If/when they faltered, though, they splashed into a pool of freezing cold (with actual ice) water.

The Yellow Penguins went up first, with Cathy as the first tricycle rider, but almost immediately after she got in the red zone, she lost her footing, fell off the tricycle and ended up getting dumped in the pool, though she landed on her feet so only got the bottom part of her body wet. She was really angry at how poorly she'd done, and she was fearful that if her team lost, she'd be put up for elimination because of her poor performance. Bilenda was up next, and she did very well, staying in the red zone for quite some time before eventually getting dumped in the pool. Everyone else who fell into the pool went full in so were fully immersed in the freezing water. The Yellow Penguins had a total of 38 seconds in the red zone.

The Green Monkeys went up next, with Meaghan up first as the tricycle rider. She started off going too fast and pedaled past the red zone (a problem that most of them had - not paying attention to where they were on the conveyor belt), but after Mary shouted at her to slow down, she was actually doing really well for a while, but then Mary and Donnell, the bicycle riders, started to get tired and pedaled slower, so the conveyor belt sped up, which eventually led to Meaghan's downfall. Since Mary and Donnell were already so tired, I was wondering how they'd do for the next one, even though they were able to rest during the commercial break. They ended up doing ok when Darcy went up, and she stayed in the red zone for a while, but she also lost her footing at one point, and that ended up costing her. The Green Monkeys ended up with a total of 34 seconds in the red zone, so the Yellow Penguins were declared the winners.

The Yellow Penguins' reward for winning the team challenge was a VIP guided tour of the world's largest fish market, which occupied the space of several airplane hangars and included tons and tons of all manner of seafood everywhere. There was even an auction of these humongous fish. They were cut pieces of sashimi fresh off the fish (I think it was tuna - it looked really good - talk about fresh sashimi!), and even though Cathy was squeamish about it, she tried it and ended up actually liking it.

The Green Monkeys, meanwhile, paid for their loss by having to be rice farmers for a day. Their task was to plant rice, and they struggled when their boots would get stuck in the mud, and sometimes, as they were trying to unstick their boots, they'd fall into the mud, with the supervisor all the while blowing his whistle at them.

At the end of the day, the Green Monkeys had to select two of their members to participate in the elimination round. Donnell, Mary and Meaghan had already gotten together and decided that Darcy would be one of the people, but then they had to figure out which of them would be going up against her. (Darcy complained later to the camera that she didn't screw up during the challenge, so she shouldn't be going up. Well, technically, no one in their team really screwed up - they all did about the same, so there was no obvious choice. She was unfortunately in the position of not having any allies, so she was an automatic nomination from the other three.) Meaghan had then volunteered herself, on the condition that she would be exempt from the next elimination round they were in. Donnell had initially agreed to that, but after the team stated who would be playing in the elimination round, Donnell said he wasn't happy about the immunity, and Meaghan was angry and disappointed that he'd gone back on his word.

The elimination round was a combination of David Letterman's velcro suit stunt and human tetris. Darcy and Meaghan both had suits on with velcro strips all over it, and their goal was to bounce up and onto a wall with their body parts inside the chalk outline on the wall. The first person to win three rounds won the competition. In the first round, Meaghan hit the chalk outline perfectly, and Darcy did really well too, but she was slightly off, so Meaghan won round one. Meaghan continued to be near perfect in the next two rounds, and Darcy's problem was that she wasn't getting enough height on her bounce, so she was landing low, so it was a clean sweep for Meaghan after three rounds, and even though Darcy made it through two prior elimination games, she was finally sent home.

It was pretty funny watching that last game. Because there was velcro all over their suits, they were pretty much stuck up on the wall until people came over to help them down, and the rest of the contestants laughed as they watched Darcy and Meaghan hanging on the wall. After round two (I think), the show actually went to commercial before the director mentioned that they should take the Americans down. And then after Meaghan won, Darcy was left up there for some time afterward. After she was brought down, the show host seemed genuinely sad to see her go, but she was immediately swept up by the black-suited group of men and carried off.

I think it would be totally fun to be in the studio audience, banging on the noisemakers and drums and such.

Next week - the contestants are dressed up like big babies.