Mudfest

Have you every heard of hurling?  No, not the slang for throwing up - the national sport of Ireland.  It's sort of a mix between soccer and hockey, but it has been played for over 3000 years.  I heard about it from Peter, and Irish friend of mine.  Something that I've come to appreciate here is the chance to have friends from all over the world.

This past weekend was mudfest.  What's mudfest you ask?  Let me enlighten you...

peace, love, mud

Mudfest is an annual festival of mud held in the coastal city of Boryeong and is attended by seemingly all of the foreign population in Korea.  Mudfest is craziness.  Here's how it went:
Boryeong is on the west coast of Korea so to get there we needed to take a 4 hour bus drive across the country.  The plan was to get a really early start on Saturday morning... like 4:30 am early! (some people here typically go to bed around that time Saturday morning).  So around 4:30 am about 100 of us congregate in an empty parking lot, board our two coach buses, wait for the one guy who slept through his alarm, and head out of Pohang.
Now I've written a little about buses in Korea.  And I've written a little about noribong (singing rooms) in Korea.  But I haven't yet mentioned noribong buses.  This is because I hadn't experienced them before, not until I went to mudfest that is.  So this bus has a karaoke (noribong) machine hooked up to the TV at the front of the bus so that at 8:00 in the morning, we can sing our hearts out on our way to mudfest - which is what we did.
When we arrived in Boryeong, instead of going straight to mudfest central, our organizers had planned to have our own personal Mud Olympics.  So, ready to start the muddy craziness, we park, divide into teams, and walk out onto a mudflat that is wide open in the early afternoon while the tide is out.  Well, while the games were a lot of fun and quite crazy, our retreat from the mudflat was much more crazy and much less fun.  To get to the open area of mud we had to walk gingerly over a couple meters of rocks covered in sharp muscle shells.  Heading out to the mud, while the tide was out, this was done without too much difficulty.  But, after an hour or two, before we had finished all our games, the tide started to come in, and it came fast.  In no time we found ourselves ankle deep in water, rushing to, unsuccessfully, locate our shoes and sandals, and hobbling back over these rocks covered in sharp shells which were now invisible under a foot of muddy water.  I don't think any of us made it out without minor cuts on our feet.  An interesting start to mudfest.
Wet, muddy, and limping we got back on the buses and headed to where the real mudfest was happening, Daecheon beach.  Now, I've heard that the city of Boryeong, which isn't too small of a town, makes about 50% of it's profits on the two weekends of mudfest alone.  After seeing mudfest for myself, I don't doubt it.  The place was covered in literally millions of foreigners.  The area around the beach is purely hotels and minbaks (cheap accommodation houses), which are most likely empty the rest of the year.  And the restaurants and temporary food tents must make a killing during the two weeks.  It was just so full of people.
After dumping our our stuff in our minbak, grabbing something to eat, we braved the centre of mudfest.  The main attraction of mudfest is the designated carnival area full of inflated obstacle courses covered in mud.  Apparently, mudfest began as a way to advertise the cosmetics that are made using the special type of mud that they have in Boryeong.  So the mud that everyone gets covered in is actually a really nice clay-like mud that, potentially, is very good for your skin.  Around this carnival area are stations where you can cover yourself in mud or paint yourself with coloured mud.  And when you go on one of the inflated obstacle courses, you get coated in mud. 

For me, this was surely the highlight of the trip.  It was just so unique to be in a place where the sole purpose is to cover yourself in mud and join in the fun.  Unfortunately, we only had about an hour in this carnival area before it closed.  So we walked down to the beach, which was absolutely packed, and swam around a little.  We also had a chance to walk around the beach area...

.. which of course had specifically made picture taking areas

 We stayed until Sunday afternoon and then headed back to Pohang.  The return trip was much quieter, no singing, everyone needed to catch up on sleep.

This summary certainly doesn't give you all the details, but it maybe gives you an idea of what mudfest was like.  Oh, one more thing: alcohol might have been involved ... even at 8:00 in the morning on the noribong bus ... 

Bonus Material: The night before mudfest Alisa, Jane, Japan Dan, Eddie and I joined Canadian Dan and Natasha for dinner.  We had 'Shabu Shabu' - beef that you cook in a hot soupy broth in front of you.  It was delicious.  And, the restaurant had play place that some of us couldn't resist.

the ones who couldn't resist

Thanks for reading,
Michael