Anne in Korea: Gyeongju Cherry Blossom Marathon

First and foremost: I did not run a marathon. I didn't run anything actually, but I did sign up to walk the 5 kilometer cherry blossom run out at Bomun this weekend! Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms have all fallen, but we still got extremely lucky to have an absolutely gorgeous day! It's been cold and windy and grey most of the week, but Saturday was sunny and absolutely stunning.

We began our day with a bike ride out to Bomun in the wee early morning hours. We got there and put on our official looking "racing" gear. Our registration package included a really nice athletic shirt which I'm very happy about! As we got into line to begin the race, a lady was handing out helium balloons. She handed some to my friends, but one look at me and she decided I probably needed some help, and she proceeded to tie it to me just in case I dropped it.

After the walk, which was pretty and full of happy cute little Koreans, we got to go to the afterparty picnic! We got free food, free beer, and free makoli (Korean rice wine). We also got to watch a free show of dancing, and get free sports massages. As if this wasn't good enough, we then went across to the Gyeongju Expo where a world festival was happening, and due to participating in the race, we got free admission! The festival had stalls of various countries with Koreans in the traditional clothing of that country handing out pamphlets to us. All the pamphlets were in Korean, but the pictures were lovely. We even got to try on hanbok, the traditional Korean dress, which I have been wanting to do since I got here, and we were given a whole bunch of very random free things. We even had a free medical checkup. I was very impressed that they were able to tell from my results that I am a lefty! Apparently my left side is more muscled than my right!

All in all, it was a gorgeous day we spend outside picnicking and enjoying the perks of being foreigners in Korea. It was spectacular, and the company I had was lovely. Today I baked cookies at my coteacher's house, so all in all it was a very wonderful weekend. Her husband was watching a Korean drama, and Adri and I were jokingly guessing the plotline based on music and facial expressions. My coteacher said our plot was better, hehehe. Enjoy the pictures!