Mud Festival

July 21st and 22nd were spent at the Boryeoung Mud Festival. Great time was had by all. We left early in the morning and took the train to Daechon Beach, the best beach on Korea's west coast. And compared the only other west coast beach I've seen here, it was paradise. In fact, compared to many other beaches I've been on at all it was amazing. Miles and miles of gorgeous white sand.

So the point of the Mud Festival is, of course, the mud. It is rich in minerals and whatnot that are really good for your skin, so they harvest it and make cosmetics and shampoo and stuff out of it, and once a year have a festival celebrating it. We were expecting miles of mud to roll in, but were disappointed to find out that it was trucked in to the beach. Well actually, it was manufactured. They dry and grind the mud into dust and then add water to make...clean mud. It's the same dust they use to make the cosmetics. Anyway, despite the fact that we couldn't roll in the mud like we wanted to, we still had a great time.

After getting off the train and squeezing onto a bus with other mud-goers (and lots of foreigners. We felt really weird and exposed knowing people around us could understand what we were saying. Not something we're used to.) we managed to find our hotel. The Motel Coconuts. Don't you love the neon palm tree?

Here's a picture of me posing in the room. What style! And I am of course refering to the wallpaper.

After checking in and getting changed we headed for the beach. Our first stop was the "Mud Self Massage." Which really means...painting yourself with mud.

Here's Shaun in the process.

And Hannah.

And my finished product.

The first day we spent just wandering around and checking out the various mud-related activities. They had a mud bath, a huge pool of muddy water that you would go in and splash eachother and do belly-flops and stuff. It wasn't very pleasant as I kept getting gritty mud in my mouth and eyes. And when we went in it was full of macho American army guys who kept trying to wrestle the Koreans. Didn't make it very fun for anyone else. There was also mud wrestiling, which Hannah and I meant to do, but kinda ran out of time. There was a huge inflatable slide that we went down on the second day. There was a guy with an inner tube at the bottom to catch people as they came down and I just ran right over him and flew off into the sand. A large group of Koreans was gathered at the bottom and they all gasped in horror. I stood up and said "I'm OK!" but no one laughed. It was pretty smooth anyway.

Once we were tired of the mud we sat on the sand and played around and had some beers. We sculpted a mud ddong (have I explained ddong yet? Its a curly pile of poo that Koreans seem to be fond of drawing, making musicals about, putting on t-shirts...)

And we also buried Shaun in a hole in the sand. That's me standing on him.

That night we went for seafood. What else would you eat while on a sea-side adventure? We ended up getting a meal that consisted mostly of raw fish and seafood. It was really delicious. There were some bits that we didn't eat...we weren't really sure what they were, and they didn't have any taste really. Hannah described it as "eating a rubber band without the rubber taste." So we left those on the plate. And the grilled fish you see here, the only cooked sea-thing, was really yummy until I bit into this one piece that must have been intestine or something because it was the most rank thing I have ever put in my mouth. I thought I was going to die it tasted so bad. I spat it out on the floor (it was an outdoor restaraunt) and wouldn't touch the fish after that. But everything else was really amazing. Even eating is an adventure in Korea!

After supper we got some wine and sat on the beach to watch the sunset.

It was a really amazing sunset. Something about watching the sun sink beyond the waves... I think I have about 30 pictures of it.

We stayed out pretty late that night, just wandering the beaches, enjoying the fireworks and the atmosphere.

Fireworks were actually X, but there were so many people setting them off it was impossible to stop them. They had these teenaged boys patrolling the beach with lighted batons...I think you can actually see one of them in this photo...telling people to stop, but there were too many fireworks and not enough batons. We set some off and a baton came over and said "Fire No!" But we just waited until he was gone and then set off the rest of them.

We met some random Koreans as well and sat with them for a long time. The one in the middle kept telling me I am "Glamour." and making the curvy motion with his hands. I'm guessing it was meant to be a compliment. He took my phone number and said he was going to call me and drive the 4 hours to Suwon to visit me. So far no call... and I can't say I'm disappointed.

The second day was spent much like the first. We tryed to go to the tidal mud flats that were the source of all the mud, but couldn't get a straight answer from any of the help desks as to how that would be possible. And the raw fish from the night before caught up with us and we made immodium our new best friend... But there was much swimming and painting and rubbing ourself with sand. The exfoliating sand mixed with the nourishing mud made us all baby-soft by the end of the weekend! But also very sunburned, as it's hard to keep sunscreen on between the mudding and sanding. Hannah and I got mud facials and massages and I bought some of the mudpack. I can't wait to use it, my face felt so amazing afterward!

After the day on the beach we changed and went for beef galbi (barbeque). It was the best thing I have ever tasted. Maybe because it's been so long since I had good beef. But it was just incredible. And we left right after supper, leaving Dacheon on a great note. Train ride home was uneventful as trains go. Except for the sunburns that started to come out...I managed to escape anything too bad except for on my back where I couldn't reach myself. But Shaun and Hannah were both like giant lobsters.

I don't have any picture yet of the second day because we bought a disposable camera so we wouldn't have to worry about wrecking out digitals. But once we get those developed, I'll post some if they are any good. If you want to see the rest of the pics from the first day, go to my facebook album at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37237&l=aff4d&id=890700076

Rock festival this weekend! I can't imagine what stories will come from that!