Mud Fest

Today we went to the annual Boryeong Mud Festival. Every year both Koreans and Westerners alike travel to Boryeong to play in a whole lot of mud and in the ocean. It is essentially a big party, there are tons of street vendors, booths and restaurants selling food, crafts, or mud related products. One of the booths you could visit was a Swine Flu booth, in case you thought you had swine flu. It was a little unnerving because there was definitely a Western woman there getting help with something. There was also a big stage that had live music all day. Families and friends go for one of the days of the whole weekend, typically camping out near the beach. Additionally, it is customary to cover yourself in mud. Luckily there are large pits of mud you can climb into or troughs with paintbrushes to paint yourself with. There are also many mud related obstacle courses and the like to play on; I did not take part in this part of the festival. I was extremely excited about this festival for two reasons. First, I had heard from a lot of people that it was a really good time and worth the trip. Second, the festival is held right on the Daecheon Beach and I had never set foot in an ocean before.

Our crew gathered early this morning and headed to the Jeonju train station. It took us two trains and a few hours to get to Boryeong, but we were all very excited to get into some mud. We arrived at the festival and put our bags into lockers that were specifically for foreigners. The lockers were free and the keys had arm bands attached to them so you could be sure not to loose your key. AWESOME! The icing on the cake was that the people running that booth were incredibly helpful and nice. We put on our swimsuits and headed down to the beach.

It was a cloudy and very windy day but still very warm. As soon as we set foot on the beach Bobby asked who was going in the ocean, he and I immediately ran to the water. It was surprisingly warm and as soon as a large wave hit me I got the taste of salt in my mouth. This surprised me, but then I reminded myself that this was not a lake in Minnesota, it was in fact an ocean. We started swimming out but after about 40 feet two men with whistles came over and escorted us out of the water. Bobby and I were both outraged at first, trying to figure out why we couldn’t swim there, everyone else seemed to be enjoying the water. We were later told that apparently a shark had been spotted in the water and that seemed like a valid reason to get us out of the water. There were troughs of mud right on the beach we started painting each other with it and soon realized there was not much mud and certainly not enough to go around. We went back up to the street to look around. We found enormous pools of mud that you could climb into. We all jumped in and got good and muddy. It was delightful. We walked up and down the street, covered in mud of course, looking around trying to decide what to do. We decided to get some beer and go down to the beach. At one point a mud-covered British woman jumped on Bobby from behind and yelled “Hello!” Bobby turned around with the most confused look on his face and the woman, completely embarrassed, said, “Oh you’re someone else.” We could not help but laugh at Bobby and at the whole situation.
We drank horrid beer and walked around the beach occasionally going into the ocean. We would rinse off, then go jump back into the mud and then rinse off in the ocean again, and so on. Needless to say, when we were covered in mud we all painted on some sweet facial hair. I myself sported a mustache that was somewhere between Salvador Dali and V from V for Vendetta.

While we were swimming we were frustrated that the life guards would only let us go about thigh deep so several of us decided that since we could not swim we would run. We ran quite a ways down the beach and I pointed out that there were no lifeguards down where we were, so Alex, Bobby and I jumped into the water. The wind was intense and it created enormous waves. We swam and played around for a while, eventually Alex ran back down the beach to get everyone else. We all swam and played in the water, jumping into waves, letting the tide carry us into shore. There was a lot of frolicking. There may have also been a wrestling match or two (solved the old fashioned Navy way, first guy to die looses. No one lost). Playing in the ocean was amazing and so much fun.

Eventually we all decided that we were tired and needed some food. We gathered our shoes and headed back up to the lockers. On our way off of the beach the wind kicked up the sand and it pelted and stung our salted bodies. Jared said that this was probably part of the exfoliating process, and therefore worth the pain. We got some food, bulgogi burgers, and sat around just talking. We decided that we were ready to head home. We dried off and caught some cabs back to the train station. Bobby, Alex and I had some trouble with this; the cabbie would not take us because we were too wet (we were dry but still in swimsuits). He then got out of his cab and told all the other cabbies lined up along the curb to not take us. Ass. We crossed the street and got another cab. We caught the train back to Iksan and then another one back to Jeonju. A combination of mud and ocean water made for a very sticky couple of the train rides. We decided against bringing our cameras because we were planning on being muddy and jumping around in the ocean all day. And believe me, it was a good choice that we did not subject our cameras to a day at Mud Fest. So I am sorry that we have no pictures of this amazing event.
Over all it was an amazing day, really one of the best I have had in a long time.

"The Escapist" - The Streets