MUDFEST

There is an annual festivalheld in the city of Boryeong, Korea, whose sole purpose is to get drunk and play in the mud. It started out years ago simply as a promotional event for this "cosmetic, healthy mud," but as the years passed, more and more foreigners started showing up and just trying to get as muddy as possible. That is how it became "Mudfest," a huge mud festival that thousands of foreigners and Koreans (but mostly foreigners) show up to in order to play, party, and get very muddy.

This past weekend was the festival (it lasts for two weekends) and the Jinju crew decided to make a trip of it. We rented a Noraebong bus (Karaoke bus) for the four hour trip so that time would fly by as everyone drank, sang, and danced. It was quite the sight. When we got to Boryeong, we had rented out one floor of a Pension, which was just a few rooms with floor space and some blankets, and everyone packed in and claimed a spot on the floor. Obviously a group of 22+ yr. olds were not about to call it a night, so everyone headed down to the beach from there (now midnight) and began splashing around in the ocean. Because of the big event, the whole city was awake the whole night, full of foreigners from everywhere.

The next morning everyone got up and headed down the beach to the festival. It consisted of plenty of inflatable bounce obstacle course things filled with mud for races, a huge slide which ended in a big puddle of mud, numerous pools of mud where people packed in for mud wrestling, a jail where you could get hosed down with mud, some stalls where, if you aren't a fan of brown, you could get painted all different colors, and then a large area where all the thick mud was dumped for an ongoing mud fight. There was also a stage with a couple mc's, music blaring, and plenty of drunk foreigners dancing around, covered inmud. The whole thing was pretty amazing, including the part when a very old, drunk Korean man attempted to make out with me. My favorite foreigners had to be the group of South Africans, all belligerently drunk the entire weekend and wearing an odd assortment of torn clothes and matching fake tattoos. The "paparazzi" were everywhere, taking pictures of the muddiest, drunkest foreigners. It was great 'cause the entire city looked as though it had been taken over by zombies :). The beach right below the mud festival was packed all day as well, as when people got sick of being caked in mud, they would just jump in the ocean.

After spending an entire day covered in mud, we finished by washing off in the ocean until everyone got kicked out of the water by the po-po because the waves were getting rough. That night the city was alive again with so many foreigners wandering around, it was the first time since arriving here that I have understood everyone around me. The next day the beach was littered with all kinds of cameras, money, shoes, etc. but most were broken and torn. In the afternoon the sun decided to show up for the first time that weekend, so the beaches quickly became PACKED. Anyway, that was my exciting weekend at Mudfest. Now I just have to get through this week of teaching and it's on to Thailand!