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Published: August 14th 2010
MUDFEST
Fiona and I before getting muddy!Boryeong is known for it's mud. Mud you ask? Yes, mud! And, they have an annual mudfest known worldwide to celebrate the natural qualities of their famous mud! There are also many skin products sold throughout Korea that are made using Boryeong Mud.
Now, a little history on how this Mudfest came about. In order to promote the Daecheon beach area's mud, Boryeong city started a festival where they would bring in mud for people to experience for free. Somewhere along the way, some foreign teachers started to attend the festival. As it turns out, the foreign teachers love the idea of painting themselves with mud, jumping into mud pools, sliding down mud slides, and/or taking their chances with some mud wrestling. Before long, word got around that this is THE festival to attend for anyone here teaching or living in Korea. It is certainly a unique and memorable experience to have in Korea.
So, a group of about 20 or so foreigners who live here on Geoje Island all got together and planned our trip to Boryeong. We rented two vans from a local car rental and all piled in with beers, soju and snacks on a Friday
MUDFEST
Patrick and Fiona in the mud pool! night after everyone finished work. The 3 hour drive to Boryeong took approximately 5 hours, but with food, drink and friends for the journey (and a very patient Malcolm at the wheel) we made it, all in great spirits. We had booked accommodation at a pension, which is a hotel room with no beds, but mats and blankets for the floor. We found one that would hold about 16-18 people and we all piled in with our sleeping bags and blankets. We spent Friday night checking out our surroundings and drinking on the roof of our pension. We were just a few blocks from the beach, so we were in for some good mudfest action the next day!
Saturday morning, I went in search of food, but the city was not well equipped for the influx of visitors. After searching for something other than bbq pork (which seemed to be the only option and it was breakfast after all!) I settled for a cold coffee and a pre-made sandwich from the mart. It was a rainy and cloudy day, but it was warm out, so we all got into our bathing suits, grabbed beers and headed toward the beach.
MUDFEST
Fi and I in the mud pool...unfortunately an underwater camera can only do so well in mud pools. There were tons of people swimming, playing pickup games of football and soccer on the beach and walking around covered in mud. We followed our ears and the crowds down the beach toward a huge stage with music blasting. Behind the stage were a plethora of mud obstacle courses and pools, with lots of muddy foreigners. So, we jumped in!
After making our way through a few of these courses and feeling sufficiently muddy, we decided to move on to the really thick mud, where we had the chance to partake in an epic mud fight! Now who could pass that up?! We got there and immediately began to scoop up giant clumps of mud and rocket them through the air. If anyone was partaking in this mud fight without being covered in mud from head to toe, it was not long before they were approached by people rectifying this shortcoming. The mud fight was a blast and had us all cracking up and having a great time. However, I neglected an extremely important necessity for a mud fight of this caliber...protective eyewear. Because it was a cloudy day, I hadn't brought my sunglasses out with me. So, it
MUDFEST
Fiona and some random dude falling out of one of the mud obstacles. And that's Patrick's head and leg as he comes sliding out as well.. wasn't long before I was looking in one direction when a giant clump of mud came catapulting through the air and landed right on my open left eye. It took three scrapes to get the clump off my face, but unfortunately my hands and all of my friends hands were too dirty to help me in any way. Within minutes I was navigating myself with one eye out of the epic mud fight and down to the ocean, where I dove in and with a now clean finger, attempted to clear my eye of the mud. My friends Malcolm and Fiona were with me, both of whom are great enough to have taken their go's with my eye as well. We got a lot of it out, but our salty fingers just weren't cutting it. So after a few minutes in the ocean, I headed back to the pension to properly clear out my eye and put in some visine. It felt much better after this, but I spent the rest of the weekend with a swollen left eye, producing a less than attractive goop every so often, so poor Fiona was on goop patrol for the rest of the
MUDFEST
Fiona, Patrick and I just after the mud obstacle. night and following day.
Despite the mud eye incident, the mud fight was totally worth the fun involved and once I got my eye cleared out, I headed back to the beach to hangout with friends. We'd had enough of the mud for a bit, so we were relaxing on the beach, when I saw my friends from Seoul walk by. Bryan, Trevor and Jason joined us on the beach and we spent the rest of the afternoon between chilling on the beach and body surfing in the ocean. Dusk came before too long, so we all decided to head back to our places, clean up, eat dinner, then meet back up for an evening out in Boryeong.
Fiona and I went to dinner with our friends JB, Adam and Sarah at a place JB had been to the day before called Bobo's. Now, honestly, the name Bobo's should've been deterrent enough, but we went for it nonetheless. We sat down, put in our food order and waited. Now let me just say there was one other table in the entire restaurant, so they were far from busy, yet it ended up taking two hours for our meals
MUDFEST
Malcolm, Fi and I to come out!! This resulted in the creation of the phrase, "You've just been bobo'd." A phrase of which Fiona and I use on a pretty regular basis now to describe situations where you get totally screwed over. The food did turn out to be good though, so we were grateful for that.
After our Bobo experience, we headed down to the beach to catch some fireworks, before heading out to the bars. There was a great fireworks show over the ocean. I love, love, love fireworks, so it was a nice treat. Then, Fiona and I went to meet up with Bryan, Trevor and Jason. On the way to meet them, Fiona and I somehow ended up at a concert of some apparently famous Korean Pop singer, so we danced for a few minutes, before we could no longer stand the awful K-Pop (as it's known here) music and continued on our way.
We had a great night out on the town, that involved a couple bars, some drinking outside of the marts (which is very common in Korea), and playing with sparklers on the beach, before heading back to the pension for a few hours sleep.
MUDFEST
Malcolm, Fiona and I again.. The next day our 3 hour drive back from Boryeong to Geojedo took close to 6 hours and was pretty low-key, since most everyone was tired and a bit hungover. But overall, our Boryeong Mudfest experience was a successful one with lots of mud and fun along the way! And to top it all off, I think my skin is softer..
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Marie Rider
non-member comment
Loved the posting and pictures. Looks like great fun...not for me but vicariously enjoyed every minute.