Happy Good Day- Boryeong

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Ths irony of creating a holiday among your friends when you are young as an excuse to meet up every year and party is that sometime syou find yourself on the other side of the world partying alone. Well, I suppose it isn't "the" irony, but this year I was not able to celebrate the infamous "Good Day" with my friends (and I am sure that they didn't celebrate it either come to think of it) in Canada. Instead, I trucked my ass down to Daecheon beach in Boryeong for the glorified Mud Festival- a shmorgous-borge (I have no idea how to spell that word) of foreigners chomping at the bit for a little liberal celebration among the sometimes straight and narrow conservative Korean culture.

I was a little trepidatious about the weekend. As I am leaving for Vietnam four days following my return from Boryeong, and I was developing an irritating little Korean head cold (by the way, for those unaware, there is no such thing. A Korean head cold is like a bomb exploding in your brain and slowly vibrating its aftershock to all constituent parts of your body. I should have said "massive Korean bomb disease"). Needless to say, the train ride was a little tedious, and through my desperate attempts to clear my head and "chill" as my kindergarten class would say, I was being plagued by the unfamiliar din of a crowd of English speakers, all seemingly obnoxious, my brain trying unsuccessfully to tune out the noise.

But the train eventually rolled into the station and hundreds of obnoxious immigrants (myself included) piled out and into the square. Soon taxis had exported the crowds to nearby love motels that had cranked their costs up to ungodly amounts ( I believe our room near the beach was $190 a night for the 10 of us...with just enough room to fit our bodies all side by side on the floor). We changed into our "beach clothes" (we knew better than some last year, and took only clothes that were ready to face their deaths) and strolled, under overcast skies, down to the water. As we walked we passed countless sets of eyes enbedded in a walking mass of blueish gray. People were almost identifiable (and, coming over in the train, I knew I would have otherwise recognized some of them from the Rocky). I had mellowed, and ready to take it as it came, however that may be.

We found the "self massage" area of the beach...basically little tables set up with paint brushes and buckets of mud. "Well....when in Rome...." This is the moment the weekend became all worthwhile- the moment that mud hit my skin.

I could write for hours on the details of the weekend- the tanks of live seafood all down the beach, the mud wrestling, the waves, the slides, the Cafri, the pizza joint, the endless tide, the Lotteria food, the Korean dance club - but really the only thing I remember vividly was that first moment, when the mud hit my skin, and I was released for a short period of time from the strick behavioural constraints of this society, and was able to be free- be dirty.

What a fabulous excuse for a Festival.




All photos courtesy of Erin McLaughlin and Alison Rushton. Thanks ladies, didn't want to wreck that camera

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Photos

Clean
Before the fun really began

My necklace got a little dirty
not to mention the rest of me. That shirt was DONE for

Andrew and Brianne
those two are ALWAYS dirty

Erin and I
partners in crime....we'll see how Nam goes

Jen and Ally
Ally was on every Korean's camera that weekend.....we all felt like moviestars....look for us on the net (seriously)

Erin
...destined to be a mud model

Fireworks
there is something odd about the way staring up at a spectacle in the sky makes for a certain intimacy among a large crowd of people on a beach

Mini bikes
Erin and Kelly rode them when I was in the club....I wish I would have taken that oppotunity. That woudl have been hilarious

I remember the days
It was a taste of nostalgia to get so dirty and not care...just like these little ones

The baby that a random family threw into my lap
he did not want to be there....poor thing. korean's like to use their children as a novelty to attract foreigner's (maybe an unfair exaggeration, but it is almost true)

Brianne
classy