**Oops, I started this post before Chuseok break and forgot to finish/post it...two weeks later...**
After meeting up with the Chuns on Saturday, I participated in KIS's 3rd Annual Scavenger Hunt. It's organized by three very creative and dedicated teachers. It is serious business - not yo mama's scavenger hunt!
There were over 100 volunteers and participants, 14 teams, and 6 Waldos (ahem, excuse me, Wally, apparently to the rest of the world).
Not the best picture, but it has almost everyone in it! The guys in blue on the ground in front (Pete, Jason, and Kevin) organized and planned the game.
In the past, teams have merely chosen a team color, this year along with the color teams either had shirts screen printed, costumes created, and bought team jogging suits. We were red/white stripes, so naturally, went with Where's Waldo (nothing makes one blend in better than wearing bold stripes and ski caps in a foreign country). The pink team, very cleverly, went with the pig theme. They had shirts screen printed with pieces of bacon. Then they each had a different name. How genius is this:
Rasher
Samgyeopsal
Canadian
Lacon
Kevin
Fakin
Different types or names of bacon! Kevin included!
Pre-gaming and strategizing! (One of our teammates joined us later.)
There were cash prizes for 1st (plus trophy), 2nd, 3rd, and 7th places. And if you came in 13th place you had to buy 14th place a round of drinks at the end. There were also two raffle drawings up for grabs.
We met at 5:15 in Central Park in Bundang (conveniently, right down the street from my apartment). Our first clue was a word scramble.
Multiple Intelligences!
Spatial
Logical
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalistic
Musical
Kinesthetic
Moral
(I think they left off linguistic - unless that was the word scramble itself.)
This would be the name of the game!
After we solved the word scramble, we were given our next challenge - and it was...musical! We were given an excerpt from a musical and a random word (most were of naughty nature). We had to rework the song using this random word, perform the song using movement and the props provided, and one member had to "interpret" the song non-verbally.
Our song was "Summer Nights" from Grease and our word was "balls." An easy word to fit into this innuendo filled musical. I don't have the video of this part yet, but that's probably for the best since I was singing Sandy's part.
:/
The place you came in determined who "got" to start up the hefty hill to the top of the park. We came somewhere in the middle. We ran up through the woods to the top of the hill/mountain (running up hill feels like running up a mountain). The Master of Fitness (Pete, one of our elementary PE coaches) lead part of the team in exercises that they had to complete while two members (Heidi and I) went to the outdoor fitness area and had to take pictures and video on the various equipment, demonstrating the use of different muscle groups. We then had to match the muscle group we were working out to the Latin name equivalent. (Naturalist and Kinesthetic - whew.)
We then ran down the hill, out of the park and across to Seohyeon Station where there is a pedestrian mall. Here we had to complete a photo booth challenge (seriously, it is a challenge here - there are all sorts of graphics that they add onto the photos - VERY time consuming! We thought we'd run in and take a series of silly group photos and be done) and then complete various arcade games with specific scores. Are we out of breath yet? Did I mention the stair running? Many of these places were NOT on the ground level. Some of us should have started training for this a few weeks ago!
We then received our next clue via phone interview (Interpersonal). We had to determine the job we were interviewing for based on the questions asked. Upon completion of that task we were given a clue in Korean (thankfully we had our Korean coworker, Jay, on our team - I haven't quite mastered Hangul yet). We took a cab to the next spot (whew, the break was nice!) and were directed to an apartment in the Paragon building (where many KIS teachers live) for an Intrapersonal activity - ink blot pictures! We were happy to sit in a circle, take a break, and analyze our ink blot pictures in the most ridiculous way.
Next we were directed onto the rooftop for a Moral challenge. We were given a list of inspirational quotes to match to the famous person who the quote belonged to...as we began picking the quotes apart one of our team members noticed a note on the instructions - you could skip this whole challenge if each person chugged a beer! Uhh, done. Saved us about 20 minutes, well worth it.
We were then to take the subway to Seoul. At the subway car a puzzle awaited us - ideally you were to put it together before the train arrived...otherwise, you put it together on the train. We ended up doing the latter. Once put together and taped, on the flip side was a treasure map. You had to follow that according to paces, take pictures with certain landmarks along the way, and end up at your next check point.
One of our landmarks along the treasure map (lingerie store in the subway station, why not?).
We figured we were for sure finished, but no! At the final checkpoint we received a double sided sheet of tasks to complete throughout Gangnam (the perfect place for a true scavenger hunt)! Some of the tasks were to sing an 80's song at noreabang (Korean style karaoke where you get your own room), take a Charlie's Angels pic, dance Gangnam style with Koreans, pose like mannequins in front of American Apparel, eat street food, and about 50 other tasks (although, we only had to complete about 20 of them).
Charlie's Angels (more Charlies than Angels here)
Show a variety of emotions
Take a picture in front of the Rainbow shisha (hookah) lounge
Buy rice wine and share it with Koreans
"Oppa Gangnam Style" with Koreans!
Follow a foreigner and narrate their actions a la Steve Irwin. (We creeped this guy out and he ended up turning around and following us for a bit. Fair enough.)
Singing 80's great "Livin' on a Prayer"!
Dance the twist while the videographer sings "The Twist."
We ended up coming in 6th place out of 14 teams (not too shabby - although, by that point we were hoping for 7th, at least we'd have won a cash prize)!
A fun (albeit, exhausting) time was had by all!
