MudFest

Boryeong, South Korea is known for two things: (1) Mud (2) Mud Festival. The silt is apparently good for your skin. Everything in Korea is good for your health and/or skin. Direct quote from the festival website, " The mud itself is very good for your skin and health." The low tide during this time of the year makes it perfect to have a festival!

Our trip started at 5 a.m. with a crazy bus ride. Ninety Pohangsters boarded the buses with beer and booze. The frequent, much needed bathroom breaks interrupted our Noraebang (karaoke) fun but the songs just commenced once we boarded again. The last leg of the ride was particularly painful as we had passed the last rest stop but 90/90 people needed relief. This was the result...

(Photo courtesy of Angela Russell)

Our first stop was to the mud flats for Mud Olympics. It consisted of various challenges, relays, tug of war and of course, a lot of beer. 

(Photos courtesy of Daniel DeGrasse)

Unbeknownst to us, the tide comes in rather quickly. This resulted in everyone's shoes being scooped up as quickly as possible so they weren't washed away. Then that resulted in everyone who had their shoes rescued  venturing up sharp, shell-covered rocks barefooted. The ending result was many sliced feet, arms, knees and bodies. (Which we all felt the next day when we were sober again.)

We then went to our accommodations for the night. The wonderful trip arrangers reserved minbaks (you could compare them to condos) for the 90 of us to sleep in. 

Some beach time was in store after Olympics. We checked out the actual festival a bit then headed to the sand for some Frisbee and swimming. A bulgolgi (marinated beef with vegetables) dinner was prepared for us and the winners of Mud Olympics were announced. I am not so proud to announce that my team, The Dirk Digglers, won the award for the least amount of points scored. Our prize was horrible, cheap vodka that we had to share. Terrible.

After a nice walk on the beach at night, an awesome fireworks show started. 

(Thanks again for the pictures, Angela!)

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was sitting in a plastic lawn chair around the corner from our minbak where some people set up a make-shift bar and grill. The characters we saw during the course of four hours was quite comical. 

(After face-planting into the concrete, this guy at least made it to the bushes to pass out.)

A lively crowd carrying on around "Rhythm and Booze."

The two guys in this Trans Am drove up about four times for drive-through beers...

After a few hours of sleep it was time to get up and enjoy the festival for a while before it was time to head home. This was by far the best part of the weekend. There were areas where you could paint yourself in mud and another area that had mud wrestling, mud pools, mud slides, mud prison and just about every mud activity you could think of. 

You stood inside the bars while bowls of mud were thrown at you.

One of several slides.

A pool to wash off in before going back for more mud!

Paint your mate. Paint yourself. Be painted by ajummas...

...Just relaxing in the mud.

My friend Angela and I walked around (covered head to toe in mud, of course) to take pictures and came across a traditional Korean percussion band.

Then, all of a sudden, we were handed drums. To play with the band. 

Note the Korean photographers behind me... They were EVERYWHERE! One Korean would stop us and ask to take our picture. Then 20 more would swarm in. There's a photo contest for pictures to put on next year's MudFest poster.

The ride home was significantly quieter and I'm sure it took everyone a few days to fully recover. MudFest was an experience to remember forever and kind of makes me want to stay in Korea for another year just to go again. We'll see what happens... Here are some other fun photos from the weekend.

Sunset at Daecheon Beach.

Mud Man??

Kimchi!!

Angela and me just as cold mud was thrown at our backs!