On Saturday, May 16th, I participated in a scavenger hunt. The hunt was hosted by a group called A.S.K. Now (Access South Korea Now) which recruits people to teach in South Korea. The scavenger hunt was open to anyone willing to pay the 20,000won entry fee (about $16 USD). All of the entry money was to be pooled and divided among the top 3 teams. Due to the rainy weather, I don’t think as many people showed up. However, there were enough players to have 11 teams with 6 people each.
We all met early afternoon-ish at Hangangjin Station in Seoul. We were randomly divided in groups so that no one had any planned advantages. It was a great way to force us to meet some new people. We had to choose one member to be the group leader who would receive text messages with special missions throughout the day. We nominated Amy, an 18-year-old, who is fluent in both English and Korean (which proved to be the key to our group’s success). The group leaders had a quick meeting together where they learned the rules of the game and were given a packet with about 100 various tasks. There were two types of tasks: collecting things and taking photos of your group doing certain things or at certain places. It would have been impossible to complete every single task, so it was up to each group to determine which ones to do. The tasks had varying point values from 5-50 depending on how difficult they were judged to be.
Our group quickly scanned through the packet and determined a rough itinerary for ourselves. We decided to first accomplish a few of the tasks near Hangangjin Station. Before leaving the station though, we were able to complete one of the tasks in the station’s bathroom: “Take a photo of your entire group with a squatter toilet.” This proved to be a bit exciting since our team had both male and female members. We chose to go into the women’s bathroom, but definitely confused some innocent Korean woman. Even the stranger who took our photo had to go back outside the bathroom and double-check that she was in the right one!
After leaving the station, we had our photo taken with a bus driver, got a brochure from the Harley Davidson store, took a photo in front of Hannam Market, and bought some “rice tard”. We then caught a bus and headed to Gangnam. Once there, we stopped at a coffee shop where we took a photo with “Dr. Fish” (tiny fish that eat the dead skin off of your feet) and had our picture taken in a sticker booth. Although we wanted to accomplish more tasks in Gangnam, we were sent a text with a special mission: “Go to the On the Border restaurant in Coex Mall.” This mission was supposedly worth 500 points and we had less than an hour to get there! There was no way we could pass up that opportunity, so we split up into two taxis and headed to Coex.
I had never been to Coex Mall before and didn’t realize what a maze it would be! It took a long time for our group to reunite (one of the taxis was really far behind). We had a map and thought we knew where we were going, but of course, we got lost. With less than 5 minutes to spare, we were literally sprinting through the mall and dodging between the numerous shoppers. People must’ve thought we were crazy…why were there so many foreigners running determinedly through an indoor shopping mall? We all had our rain coats on and were beginning to sweat profusely.
Eventually, we made it to On the Border with less than 60 seconds to spare! We got the 500 bonus points and were given the opportunity to earn more points by finding “Jackie Chan” in the mall and taking a photo of ourselves doing the classic karate pose with him. 10 minutes later, mission accomplished. We ended up spending a couple hours in Coex because there were many tasks which could be completed there:
- Get a brochure from the aquarium
- Get a pamphlet from the Apple store
- Take a photo with one group member with a Korean child on their shoulders (I was the lucky group member!)
- Bring back 4 empty soju bottles, each a different brand
- Take photos of yourself drinking in front of the famous convenient stores
- Take a photo of your group playing the Crazy Taxi game at the Coex Arcade
- Visit the Kimchi Museum
- Bring back 3 sets of chopsticks each from a different Chinese restaurant
- Bring back a chip from a Casino
- Find a restaurant menu with an English misspelling
- Bring back a sugar packet from the Coffee Bean
- Collect 10 different business cards
After leaving Coex mall, we received another text with a special mission. We didn’t know what we had to do, but we were given directions to a random building near Konkuk University. So we took the subway there and found the place…it was 노래방!! Our group had to choose a song and sing karaoke together. Whatever our score was (out of our 100) was doubled for our bonus point value.
Everyone seemed to be having so much fun and wanted to accomplish more, so the hosts extended the time limit by one hour. In the last hour, my group completed a few more tasks. The highlights included:
- Taking a photo of all group members wearing black, plastic-framed glasses
- Taking a photo of all group members holding a watermelon over their head
- Taking a photo with 번데기 (beondegi: nasty silkworm larvae) on our tongues
- Visiting a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang: public bathhouse), putting on the uniforms and having our photo taken together
We had to meet at a certain time at a particular bar in the Sinchon area. For every minute we were late, we’d have 5 points deducted. Luckily, we met up with the hosts on the subway so we inconspicuously followed them to the bar (which was not so easy to find). Once at the bar, everyone shared a lot of laughs, drinks, and long-overdue food. As the merry-making continued, the points were slowly tallied by the hosts. My team got 2nd place!!! Our prize money came out to be 56,000won per person (about $45 USD)! I knew our group had done well, but I was still surprised! I had such an awesome day; I met some great people, did some crazy things, wandered around some new areas, and even made some money while doing it!!
My school had its “Sports Festival” on Friday, May 22nd. It was a great day because I didn’t have to teach any classes and I was provided with entertainment which made the hours pass by quickly! Almost all schools in Korea have a sports festival day which is equivalent to a “field day” in the U.S. All of the students participate in various relays. Each class of about 35-45 students is grouped together as a team. The students take these teams very seriously and spend days coming up with elaborate costumes, accessories, cheers, and dances. It was amazing to see all the effort the students put forth to make this one day a success. Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous: warm and sunny, not too hot. My favorite part of the day would have to be the class performances. Only the second-grade students (juniors) performed, but each class had their own time (12 classes each performing about 5 minutes).
