Solution: Nostalgia Trip
Answer: AMENDS WE MADE
Written by Sim Hong Jhun and Janice Heng
Upon solving the final meta, you are directed to the House of Tiger and Leopard -- Haw Par Villa, or 虎豹别墅 (literally "Tiger Leopard Villa"). Converted to a theme park in the 1980s, it has nostalgic resonance for many Singaporeans.
Among the park's many sculptures is a long diorama of Journey to the West. This has 8 scenes with info-boards. Each scene corresponds to one of the flashbacks in the puzzle -- but there are differences between the actual scenes and the provided flashbacks.
More specifically, in each paragraph (a scene may have more than one paragraph), there is 1) an incorrect enumeration, 2) a wrong detail that can be corrected by replacing a single word. To reduce ambiguity, some of the correct words are given somewhere else in the puzzle text (e.g. "shorts", "blooming tree").
The scenes are in alpha order. The flavourtext suggests that you would "rather trust what you see than your unreliable memories". So reorder the scenes from left to right along the diorama; note the differences; and index into each correct word using the correct number.
Scenes are named here based on the info-board headings.
| Scene (L-R) | Wrong detail | Correct word | Wrong number | Correct number | Extracted letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Spider women trap Tripitaka", par 1 (...Three women...) |
tall DURIAN tree | PAPAYA | 3 women | 2 | A |
| "Spider women trap Tripitaka", par 2 |
WITHERING plum blossoms | BLOOMING | 2 fingers | 5 | M |
| "Tripitaka's first disciple, Monkey God" (...From your vantage point...) |
BEFORE you, your other hand | BEHIND | 1 eye | 2 | E |
| "The magic cypress grove" (...A blue rope...) |
A BLUE rope | GREEN | 9 prongs In Journey to the West, Bajie really has a 9-toothed rake |
5 | N |
| "Tripitaka's magical white horse" (...This body...) |
Head UP | DOWN | 2 handles | 1 | D |
| "Tripitaka's third disciple, Sandy" (...You struggle...) |
green ROBES | SHORTS | both legs | 1 | S |
| "Monkey God battles Scarlet Child", par 1 (...Well, this is annoying...) |
with a BOW | SWORD | 1 sword | 2 | W |
| "Monkey God battles Scarlet Child", par 2 | RED spear | GREEN | 2 women | 3 | E |
| "Tripitaka's second disciple, Pigsy", par 1 (...At the top of...) |
At the TOP of | BOTTOM | 7 lotuses | 6 | M |
| "Tripitaka's second disciple, Pigsy", par 2 | purple and RED and blue | ORANGE | 5 hands raised and waving | 3 | A |
| "Tripitaka's second disciple, Pigsy", par 3 | along the CORRIDOR | BRIDGE | 5 women | 4 | D |
| "Journey to the West" (...White headgear...) |
WHITE headgear | RED | 1 finger | 2 | E |
This yields the answer to the question of what you truly gained: maybe the real treasure was the AMENDS WE MADE along the way to enlightenment.
There are enough photographs online of the Journey to the West diorama in Har Par Villa that a remote team could, in theory, extract enough letters to get to the answer (it's less clear if available photos provide enough information on ordering). While the runaround is always set with local teams in mind, we certainly don't mind if remote teams attempt it too!