The Cheeky Buddha Race 2007

Saturday saw the 2^nd annual event of the Cheeky Buddha race. It consists of a number of teams, with each team consisting of 4 members. The brief is come dressed in fancy dress and give yourself a team name, oh and turn up at location one at 12:00.

From there monies are exchanged and team name badges (A4 sized) are pinned to a suitable location on your costume. But more importantly our day pack is handed out. The day pack is your teams mission. There are a number of ways to gain points throughout the day. One being a number photo challenges. For example, take a photo of dancing girls, any pet wearing shoes, BIG hugs with a police officer and high five an old lady wearing orange pants and you’re rewarded with points. Also there was a food mission. And these were all interlinked with going from point, A, B, C and D and then finishing up at the World Cup Stadium. And then all off to a bar for the after party.

Chris and I joined up with two Kiwi’s and we decided upon dressing up as British Gangsters. Are reasons were fairly straight forward. We all had white shirts and black ties and some kind of accessory. So minimal effort was exercised and little financial harm was caused. Plus we knew that we would look cool, which is a big factor on days like these. We got off to a flyer. After mission one we were sitting in second place (out of about 12 or so teams), and morale was high. Second mission passed without too much hassle and we still had the knowledge that we were in the running to receive top prize. Then something drastic happened. None of us know what is was, but it resulted in us sitting down for an hour long lunch, tucking into beers and soju. We then walked around for an hour trying to find our 3^rd, out of 4, check point. The sun then went down and fatigue hit in. Phone calls around rival teams begun to break up the calmness in the group. We suddenly realised that everyone had either finished or were in the same boat as us. Basically it was time to jack it in and head to the after show. Needless to say we won nothing, and didn’t even hand in our photos at the end – we were exhausted!!

However we saw parts of Seoul that we hadn’t and probably won’t ever again. And we also met a taxi driver that was prompting being horrifically unfaithful to his wife by sleeping with 6 separate women a week and spitting in the face of the Korean government by breaking as many laws as he can in the space of his 12 hour shift. If I’m here next year I will certainly be participating in the 3^rd annual Cheeky Buddha Race.

The team photo in front of arch, show the photo to the referees and get your next mission.


Chris and I. Chris was called the 'runner' - as in the new kid in our mafia unit. So here I'm giving him a cheeky slap, to congratulate him on a smooth operation......