Color Me Rad

A few years ago I heard about a 5k run called Color Me Rad.  It was a fun run where you were coated in colors through the run and ended the run colored from head to toe.  From the pictures I saw it looked like a ton of fun and I added it to my "bucket list".

About 4 months ago I was very excited to read that Color Me Rad was coming to Seoul and was even more excited to when I realized it was going to take place during the weeks that Sam and Maddie were here visiting us. 

This was a huge run, by far the biggest I have ever been involved in.  There were over 15,000 runners, but it was incredibly organized.  They had us divided into different starting times so it spaced people out a little bit. While you were waiting for your run time they had fun music playing, a DJ keeping things moving and tons of places to get your picture taken.  Included with your registration fee is a white t-shirt, some florescent sunglasses and a tattoo.  We bought some extra color to dump on each other and "RAD" headbands for all of us to wear.  Check out how clean we are in these pictures-

The girls doing some pre-run stretching.

At the start they count you down then as you run past the starting line they dump a bunch of powdered color on you.  From what I read the "color" is actually colored corn starch so it it completely non-toxic which is good because it was everywhere by the time we were done.

We ran through the Olympic Complex and if you remember from a previous post I am a huge Olympics fan.  Maddie and I both thought it was totally awesome to be running where Olympic runners have one time run. 

This was a complete fun run.  You didn't run it for a personal record, they didn't even have a clock there and many people walked the entire thing.  We even saw a bunch of Koreans laying down along the course resting.  While we didn't lay down, we did take our time and took lots of fun pictures along the way.

They had color stations that you would run through and they would completely coat you with color.  The first one was orange.

Coming out of the first color station we were starting to look very colorful.

They were completely posing in this picture as runners because at this point we were pretty much walking.  Look at Lucy.

We bought a few extra color packets and during the run I decided that those packets were mine to dump on the kids (and Russ) at any time during the run that I wanted to.  I probably had to much fun dumping color on them when they weren't expecting it.

Next came the blue station.

Lucy is spitting blue color out of her mouth.

In the background of this picture I am dumping color on one of the kids.

We stopped to take another self portrait after we had been colored a few times. 

 Running past the Olympic stadium.

 They had 4 color stations, but we missed taking pictures at one of them.  The last one was yellow.

Check out the guy dumping yellow on the girls as we tried to take a picture. 

They stopped for a rest in the yellow.

By the time we finished the run we were completely covered in color.

We went to the run with some friends there and met up with them at the finish line.

They had more music at the end and they would count you down and everyone would throw color up in the air. 

I ran up the ramp behind all the people and snapped a few pictures to give an idea how many people were at this event.

It is easy to distinguish the clean people that hadn't started yet from the people that were done with the run.

As Americans we always attract attention on the subways but the stares went to a whole new level when we looked like this-

We had a great time doing this run. There is another one coming in September and we plan to participate in that one as well. 

Hanbok-Gown Exchange

A hanbok is a traditional, Korean formal dress.  The Koreans will often wear them for weddings, funerals, during traditional holidays and other formal events.  They are made of beautiful colored silks and often have embroidery on them.

Our General's wife, Mary, had an idea to have a get together with our Korean Marine wife counterparts and trade our ball gowns for their hanboks for an evening.  Just like we never have an opportunity to wear a hanbok the Korean women don't ever have an opportunity to wear a formal gown.  Mary reserved a suite at the hotel here on base and we all gathered to spend an evening trading cultures.  Everything was going really well until about 20 minutes into our event the electricity went out which meant no lights or air conditioner.  The temperature quickly rose in our suite, but we were having a good time and the fun continued in the dark, warm room.  The Korean women took great pride in putting their hanboks on us and showing us how to wear them.  Even though they couldn't speak any English and our Korean was very limited we had a great time together.

Thankfully, the Korean wives brought a photographer along with them who had a fancy camera that could take good pictures in the dark. 

 This is the lady who helped me put her hanbok on.  They were very proud to get their picture taken with us in their hanboks.

This is the ROK Commandants wife Mrs. Lee.  She is always a very good sport getting her picture taken with me.

Here are a few group shots of all of us. 

A few of the Korean women were uncomfortable at first with their arms and shoulders being exposed.  But after some prompting from us they were comfortable enough getting their picture taken.

About half way through the event one of the husbands brought a few camping lanterns for us to use to light the room.  While they added great light to the room, they were really hot and made the room very warm. 

Mary holding a camping lantern.

While we really enjoyed trying their hanboks on and getting pictures taken it was extremely warm in that room and those hanboks are made of silk.  We were all walking around with our arms out so that we didn't sweat in their hanboks and get marks on them.

Since moving to Korea I had some very unique experiences, and this was definitely one of them.  I wasn't sure how this event was going to go, but I had a great time sharing cultures with these Korean women.