So I’m going on vacation for a few days and I haven’t quite finished writing about my adventures in Jeju over Christmas (nor have I started on the 2013 Special Olympics Winter Games adventure or a few other adventures between now and then)…

Hopefully I’ll have those up sooner rather than later!  And while I will elaborate on my adventures this past Monday, I will tell you an amusing thing that happened to me.

I was wandering around Yeouido park, taking pictures and video, when a Korean woman wearing a bright orange vest ran up to me and asked if I had a mission card.

What I heard at first was ‘admission card,’ since she looked like she might be someone working at the park, so I was a bit nervous, since I hadn’t seen anything indicating that I needed to pay to be in the park.  But as she repeated her query, I realized that she thought I might have some sort of mission for her.  Probably because a foreign fox stands out in Korea when they let their ears and tail be visible in public.

More and more Koreans in orange vests started showing up around me and they all wondered the same thing–did I have a mission for them?  After a while someone in their group spoke enough English to understand that I was just in the park for fun and that I didn’t have any mission for them.  While I’m glad I was truthful, a part of me wishes I had thought up something random to tell them to do…

I kept walking and a few minutes later two Korean men in orange vests came running up and asked if I had a mission for them. I told them no, so then one asked if I was a cosplayer, to which I responded, “sort of.”  Then they were off looking for whoever it was that had a mission for them.

Perhaps a minute later I was met by another group of Koreans in orange vests! And again was asked the same question.   I told them no, but then they asked to take a picture with me.  Not sure if they understood or not, I reiterated that I didn’t have a mission for them, but they still wanted a picture with me.  So I agreed.

Two of them created two loops by linking their arms and had me put my legs through the loops.  They then hoisted me up and posed while a random person walking by was asked to take the picture.  They took a few pictures and then left.  At some point during that time I heard or saw mention that it was for the TV show, Running Man ( 런닝맨 ), so I’m fairly certain they were on the show.  I didn’t see any video cameras trailing any of the groups, but perhaps I’ll recognize the people whenever the episode airs.