Running Man Ep. 38 Zodiac Race:

Watch it ON: dramafever.com

Ep. 38   Zodiac Race: (Choi Ji Woo, Jung Yong Hwa, Lee Jong Hyun, Lee Ki Kwang, Simon D.)  January 06, 2013

Choi Ji Woo continues her guest starring role from the Christmas Special (which I still haven’t gotten around to watching) in this New Year’s special that takes place in Busan.  

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 The boys are all woken first thing in the morning, asked to greet the viewers with a special New Year Greeting (which includes a sleepy full/grand bow and incoherent well-wishes and asked to pick one of the two cabins where the Song Ji Hyo and Choi Ji Woo are still “sleeping.”  

(SUV: Along with people playing games in water, people being woken from sleep seems to be an effective and hilarious source of material for Korean variety.)  The guys (with the exception of the loyal Gary) all pick the glamorous actress, while Gary declares his loyalty in the new year to his “Monday Girlfriend.” 

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Everyone’s brought outside in the obviously frigid weather (which leads me to question exactly why one goes camping in the dead of winter in Korea (apparently they have much better facilities than we do in the “rugged” U.S. or everyone here is going “glamping” and I didn’t know.  (see wordage)  

 The rather gleeful PD tells everyone that they have inadvertently chosen their teams by going to their chosen cabin.  Ji Hyo is obviously put out that she’s just got Gary and much hilarity ensues.  Then the PD explains that since the teams are unbalanced, Ji Hyo and Gary will get some special guests on their team, who are hiding… for some inexplicable reason… in a giant Golden Egg.  (This may or may not have a special New Year significance, but as it is Running Man, no one can ever be completely sure.)   

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When the egg opens (complete with bishie sparkles!!!!) to reveal four of Busan’s finest stars (or least popular stars), it’s obvious   who got the better end of the deal.  Also adorable is how Busan is pretty stoked to see their “boys” back home again.  It’s obvious the guys are pretty comfortable on home turf (and probably happy they got to go home around the holidays to boot.

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There is a plot involving the discovery regarding who got the Year of the Snake zodiac card, but that’s really not significant next to games involving hauling the other’s team’s actress across the beach, massive consumption of Yoghurt drinks (oh the childhood memories!), cross-dressing, and the most EPIC (to date) Name Tag Ripping that really earned Jung Yong Hwa the title of “Ace”.  (I can’t spoil it for you, you just have to wait until the end.) 

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