The Amazing Race

During our second week in Busan, one of our Korean group leaders posted in our Facebook group that there was an upcoming 10k race in Busan. The race course would take runners across what's known as the Diamond Bridge, which has a spectacular view of Busan. As soon as I heard of it, I knew I wanted to sign up. With two friends we decided to go for it, not knowing the mayhem that we were in for. Our leader told us that pre-registration was done in person at the Adidas store at the famous Shinsegase department store starting at 10:30am. We casually all met up and found our way up to the store around 11am, thinking that we could just walk right in. 

We couldn't have been more wrong. We got up to the store and found a long line wrapped around the store and a sign (that we couldn't read) which he translated for us saying that it was closed for the day. After much discussion with the staff we were told that they only allow 100 people to sign up each day and so we were out of luck. However if we wanted to buy shoes (upwards of $100) we could then reserve a spot for the race. 

There was one more day to pre-register so Sunday morning at 8:30am found us in a line waiting outside Shinsegae to get in when it opened at 10:30am. It wasn't the warmest of mornings but we managed to stay strong. We noticed some people were getting in the building, but we weren't sure how and assumed that they were employees. Hmmmmm.....

At 10:30am the door opened....and everyone ran. We ran past the Hermes scarf store, up the escalator, around and past the fancy hiking gear stores and up three stories with a herd of other running fanatics (to be noted, we were the only foreigners). Once we got to the store, we ran in horror to the end of the line. This is what we saw. 

Somehow, despite the fact that we were near to the front of the line outside, 100 people had already mysteriously gotten in before the store opened at 10:30am and so we were past the cut off point. Now we were ready to attribute that to us being foreigners and completely clueless, however the fact that so many Koreans had also been tricked gave us pause to wait. Sure enough, the Koreans that had been with us began to cause a scene. 

Generally speaking in public places voices are hushed and anger at a situation is bottled up here. The mad dash through the store seemed to have awoken genuine anger and the men behind us started straight up yelling at the employees. After a while of general outcry during which we just stood there and hoped for the best as we had zero clue as to what was actually happening, there was good news. A sign up sheet for those who had waited outside appeared and we were suddenly guaranteed a spot with a confirmation code. At that point we still didn't have phones, but one of our friends did, so we wrote down his number for the three of us and hoped he wouldn't get a random text all in Korean. 

The next few days proved futile. My co-teacher was constantly calling the store because they mis-typed my name or there was this or that problem with the login. Both of us became invested in getting me registered for the race as it was taking up so much time and energy. The online pre-registration closed on the Wednesday following the in-store pre-registraion and I had just gotten to the point of check out when I came across the wall I knew I would: Payment with a Korean card. While I had a bank card, it can only be used to withdraw money and can't be used for online purchases like a regular debit card. 

So ultimately, I couldn't register and the race has since been filled and closed off to overall registration. There will be another one in the fall and I think when that one comes around I will be better armed with a cell phone, a debit card, more knowledge of Korean and possibly where the secret entrance is in Shinsegae.