Akaraka

There was a week of festivus type celebration on campus at Yonsei for something called Akaraka (which I believed is derived from the sound that eagles make).  It was the week leading up to a big holiday in Korea (Buddha's Birthday).  There were booths all along the main strip of campus, as well as live local bands all along the walk to work/campus, street vendors, and special activities throughout the week.  It ended with a big concert from real Korean bands.  I think the band Girls Generation came (K-pop girl group).

I signed up for a random 5k race toward the end of the festival.  It was a zombie run where we were given three flags and chased throughout the run by people dressed as zombies.  

It had different sections, and ended up actually being more like 0.5k.  It was more about having fun.  Sections included chasing, obstacles, dancing, and romance.  The dancing section had thriller playing and while the music played you could move...but if the music went off, you had to stop. Red light, green light.

The romance section was the most confusing section to me (as romance has always been a confusing affair for me).  I ran up to a crowd of about 25 girls all asking for my hand in whatever English they could manage.  Apparently you had to make it through the running segment while holding a member of the opposite sex's hand. (I did run into a gay pride parade later, but I don't feel like South Korea has much of a concept of same gender hand holding at this stage in history).  I was happy to oblige and ran with a girl through a swarm of zombies.  It got confusing in a maze that we had to go through and not knowing Korean was a slight disadvantage.

I made it through with one flag left and a temporary Korean girlfriend.  I really couldn't ask for much more in life?