Last weekend, Adam, Morgan, and I got to experience one of the most interesting festivals yet, the
Boryeong Mud Festival! It takes place at
Daechon Beach, which is about a 3 hour train ride Southwest from Seoul. Every year thousands of people come to have fun in the mud, which is exactly what we did! The mud here is famous, it is said to be great for your skin. The mud from
Boryeong is sold in all types of products- soaps, shampoos, and lotions. This is one of the biggest festivals in Korea and also the one attended by the most foreigners. At times it was easy to forget we were in Korea, but I am happy to say that I saw plenty of Korean people attending the festival as well. It was a great time!
Here is a picture of Adam and I,
pre-mud. The weather was absolutely gorgeous! A slight breeze, high 80's, and an ocean to jump into whenever you need to cool off!
The whole beach looked like this. There were people milling around everywhere. The umbrellas are where the mud was kept. The beach was full of muddy people, sunbathers, swimmers, and all sorts of interesting characters. Along with wearing the mud, there were also mud slides, mud pools, mud wrestling, a mud prison, and mud obstacle courses.
Let the muddiness begin! I am giving Morgan a mighty nice mud paint job!
Here he is returning the favor...
The finished product. Once the mud dries it is hard to smile or move because your skin feels so tight! We spent the whole day getting muddy, then going for a swim in the ocean, and then getting muddy again.
Once nightfall came we all cleaned up and the fun continued. The festival brings in some good bands to perform at night and they also put on an amazing fireworks show,
choreagraphed to music. At night the tide goes out really far and people are wandering all over the beach. Later the tide came up really far again, but everyone was too busy having fun to care. The beach is illuminated in these huge eerie blue colored spotlights which casts an interesting ambiance over the beach. We spent the evening wandering around the beach and talking to people, playing in the ocean, visiting random campfires on the beach, and spinning in circles and falling over in the sand...
And you can't forget the sparklers!
The next day we took advantage of all the fresh seafood restaurants right along the beach. This restaurant specialized in shellfish. We had a lunch of grilled oysters, snails, clams, and mussels. They are thrown from the fresh seawater right onto the grill. The pop open slightly when they are cooked. When they open you grab them off the grill, wearing a glove on one hand so you don't get burned, and you pop the top shell off and grab the meat out with your chopsticks. I wasn't sure how this was all going to taste but I actually really enjoyed it! It was definitely the freshest meal I've had in a while! It was also nice to eat while overlooking the ocean. After lunch we all piled back onto the bus to head back to Seoul. This has been one of my favorite weekend experiences in Korea so far! Today (Tuesday) is a holiday for me, so I am spending the day relaxing. One and a half more weeks of school then it's off to Hawaii! I can't believe my first semester of teaching is almost over! Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer!
Here is a picture of Adam and I, pre-mud. The weather was absolutely gorgeous! A slight breeze, high 80's, and an ocean to jump into whenever you need to cool off!
The whole beach looked like this. There were people milling around everywhere. The umbrellas are where the mud was kept. The beach was full of muddy people, sunbathers, swimmers, and all sorts of interesting characters. Along with wearing the mud, there were also mud slides, mud pools, mud wrestling, a mud prison, and mud obstacle courses.
Let the muddiness begin! I am giving Morgan a mighty nice mud paint job! 
Here he is returning the favor...
The finished product. Once the mud dries it is hard to smile or move because your skin feels so tight! We spent the whole day getting muddy, then going for a swim in the ocean, and then getting muddy again.
Once nightfall came we all cleaned up and the fun continued. The festival brings in some good bands to perform at night and they also put on an amazing fireworks show, choreagraphed to music. At night the tide goes out really far and people are wandering all over the beach. Later the tide came up really far again, but everyone was too busy having fun to care. The beach is illuminated in these huge eerie blue colored spotlights which casts an interesting ambiance over the beach. We spent the evening wandering around the beach and talking to people, playing in the ocean, visiting random campfires on the beach, and spinning in circles and falling over in the sand...
And you can't forget the sparklers!
The next day we took advantage of all the fresh seafood restaurants right along the beach. This restaurant specialized in shellfish. We had a lunch of grilled oysters, snails, clams, and mussels. They are thrown from the fresh seawater right onto the grill. The pop open slightly when they are cooked. When they open you grab them off the grill, wearing a glove on one hand so you don't get burned, and you pop the top shell off and grab the meat out with your chopsticks. I wasn't sure how this was all going to taste but I actually really enjoyed it! It was definitely the freshest meal I've had in a while! It was also nice to eat while overlooking the ocean. After lunch we all piled back onto the bus to head back to Seoul. This has been one of my favorite weekend experiences in Korea so far! Today (Tuesday) is a holiday for me, so I am spending the day relaxing. One and a half more weeks of school then it's off to Hawaii! I can't believe my first semester of teaching is almost over! Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer!
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