Boryeong Mud Festival

This past weekend I had 3 days off and decided to hit up the country famous mud festival, not really knowing what I was getting myself into, but excited none the less!

Boryeong is located on the yellow sea and the beach, Daecheon beach, has mud that apparently has cosmetic properties. I guess thats the point of the whole festival. It took about 4 hours or so by bus. I went by myself, not with a specific group of people, but knowing a lot of people who were going.

Basically, the first thing you do when you get there is get yourself covered in Mud. I mean literally covered, head to toe...including your face and for most people hair. I had my bag and camera when I first met some people I knew getting covered in mud and decided I better find somewhere for my camera and bag so they didn't get ruined. Good call.

After you are 'muddified,' you spend the rest of the day chilling on the beach, drinking beer, swimming and remuddifying yourself when the previous layer either drys or washes off in the water.

So, we had beer, sunshine, a beach and a socially acceptable norm of being dirty, what more could you ask for? There were also so many foreigners from all over the country there which was awesome. Teachers, soldiers and just tourists. First time in Korea I felt like I wasn't in a foreign country. If the foreigners didn't out number the Koreans it was close to 50/50. With all the foreigners around it meant that Korean children wouldn't point you out to their parents, stare at you with their mouths open or say hi to you every 5 seconds.

Not having a specific group I felt obligated to hang out with, I wandered between group to group of people I knew there. Usually I think I left a group of people when I needed another beer. I also found a group of people playing frisbee, so you can be pretty confident I spent a lot of time there. One of the guys actually plays travel frisbee in Korea and is having a tournament in Busan in a couple weeks that I plan on attending. It should be a good time.

The mud also worked as sun screen...which was good because I didn't put any sunscreen on. Unfortunately, I didn't get my neck very good, and as a result was suun burned pretty badly. You apply the mud with paint brushes, and if you look closely at my neck you can see the paint brush stroke sun burn. I've included the picture in this entry.