Boryeong Mud Festival

This past weekend I and a bunch of the teachers went to the Boryeong Mud Festival. There were 8 of us all together: me, Marty (entertaining us with bubblegum), her boyfriend, James (who I mudwrestled), Sarah (on the beach), Tanja, Stacy, Art, and Jason. We had the time of our lives. It was the best weekend that I've had in South Korea to date. The annual festival celebrates the healthy mud that is found near Dacheon Beach, which is in Boryeong, which is on the west coast. It's a 2 1/2 hour slow train ride there. The weekend was shaping up to be a gloomy one, as pouring rain was predicted for both Saturday and Sunday, and we went down there not having accommodations. Everything worked itself out though.

The weather could not have been finer. Beautiful blue skies and a hot sun made for excellent beach weather. We also found a minbak (accommodation where you sleep on the floor) that only cost us $25 per person for both Friday and Saturday night, and was only a 3 minute walk to the beach. The weekend was spent playing in the mud and getting very dirty, rinsing it off in the ocean, then doing it again. We also had fun with the paparazzi. Yes, paparazzi.

Despite the hundreds of foreigners there, the newspaper photographers loved our group. Probably because we had a bunch of beautiful women who didn't mind playing for the camera. But still, there were plenty of other beautiful women around. And we had Art, who looks terrifying covered in mud. It was like a piranha feeding frenzy. One lonely cameraman would show up and then minutes later everyone else decided they needed a shot. They even told us how to pose for the picture. Actually, it got annoying after awhile, but we made good fun of it.

We had the best shellfish meal on Saturday night- a bucket of live clams. You dump them on the grill and they pop open when their done. So delicious! And, I tried songnakji. Yes, I ate live, squirming octopus tentacles. Don't knock it till you try it. It was amazing!

Coming home we missed our train out of town so we caught one an hour later. Consequently we lost our seats for the 2 1/2 ride, however, we did get a refund since standing tickets are cheaper. We also made the best of it. We all congregated in the no man's land between train cars and sat on the floor blasting our music, singing and dancing and drinking beer. It was hot as hell, and very uncomfortable, but we were having the time of our lives. I felt like we were the fun steerage passengers, like in Titanic when Rose visits Jack in steerage, has the time of her life, and decides that first class is really stuffy. Everyone else with a seat on the train was really missing out. Except for the 3 elderly Koreans sitting on the floor in the corner. They looked like they really regretted being cheap and not paying the extra money for a seat. We offered them our juice though, which they accepted. (They didn't want soju.)

Finally, to round out the perfect weekend, we all had dinner at the Dubu House which we paid for with our ticket refund. It was also our final meal with Sarah, who returned from 2 weeks in Bali so she could go to the Mud Festival. There were a lot of bittersweet tears, but she finally flew back home to the States the next day. Sarah's one of those personalities you run into that is so full of life that people just want to be with her. She'll be missed, but she's planning on returning come October. All in all it was determined by everyone that we could not have had a better weekend.