Boryeong, MUD FESTIVAL!!!!!

The #1 Festival of the year came and went and it was amazing. The Boryeong Mud Festival :) Since I decided to come to Korea, this was the one thing I was looking forward to. I'd seen pictures on friends facebooks and I couldn't wait. :)

The City of Boryeong had previously been known for the quality of the mud on the land. I don't know the entire story, but what I've vaguely narrowed it down to is that they turned the mud into Cosmetic mud (which is very good for your skin) and had a 'health fesival.' Over time, it became more and more popular which eventually just turned into an over all mud festival. This festival brings in MILLIONS of dollars into the small, non-touristy city of Boryeong. They have some local mud but also wind up bringing in Mud from other places as well.

As the time got closer, I (along wtih Gill and Lacey of course) signed up to go with a group on a bus. We left at 8am on Saturday. It was a brutal morning. Everyone (besides the rebel kids drinking in the back) tried to sleep for the first few hours. We stopped about every hour for a potty break...sometimes more when the early-drinkers couldn't hold it any longer (which got to be quite annoying after awhile). The bus ride took 6 hours total and we arrived around 2pm. It was pretty brutal. We were sooooo ready to get off the bus and into the mud. We were a little disappointed with the weather which was a little rainy, gray and cloudy but that didn't stop us. We checked into our accomodation (included in the bus fee). We had a smaller room, me, Gill, Lacey, and their friends Ryan and Gavin... there was just enough room for all 5 of us on the floor... literally a small blanket on the floor and a small sheet to cover us (which we found out later didn't cover all 5 of us). I'd never stayed at a motel like this, and soon learned that I would never want to ever again lol. We changed into our 'mud clothes' and headed out! The festival was in a large area right on the beach. We first found a locker (lacey and i in the locker room), and headed out to take on the world. We tried to bring a camera but it was really difficult. No one wanted to risk their camera getting all muddy. So we only have a few pictures but still good enough for you to get the main idea.
The first thing we did was join in the mud wrestling pit. Just a huge blow up pool filled with mud and people just wrestling all over the place. It was sooooo much fun, but we all got our butts kicked pretty bad. I was spitting out mud right and left. It got pretty intense. I've never been mud wrestling but this was definitely the exact definition for it. As soon as you step in, you get thrown into the middle, as soon as you get up, someone is falling over you. If you do make it up, then there will be another guy taking out your feet from under you. It was on grass so it wasn't VERY hard but still rough and there was so much sand on the bottom of the pit that my knees were cut up pretty bad. There were soooo many people in there! I never would've guessed that being in a place surrounded by American military guys or Korean guys that the Korean guys would be the more aggressive and brutual type. They were REALLY rough with us girl. Don't get me wrong, it was still fun but we weren't surprised when someone got hurt. A few hours later, we went back there and they were monitoring how many people were in at one time and how long they stayed in. So I was glad we got in some good wrestling while we could. It was so nice to just let go and get all dirty and mudd :) So much fun!
Later, we went back to our room, showered, changed, and went for dinner. We had BBQ...which was not impressive at all. it was just a random tent set up for the tourists so i'm not sure that quality wasn't on their priority list lol. We managed to snag a few beers and headed to a club. Lacey wound up kissing a fat guy in a speedo. Random? Gross? absolutely lol. But she's crazy like that. She loves pictures and randomness lol. One of the things I like about her. We left that club pretty quickly though (it was pricey). We wound up finding a house party. A group from Daegu were just partying in their guesthouse... the entire guesthouse and front yard area. So we hung out there and met new people, western and korean. It was fun. I have absolutely no idea what time went back...maybe 4am? Ugggh, i swear time in Korea flies by!

Sunday morning we woke up and had to be out of our guesthouse by 11. We loaded our things into the bus. Luckily it was a BEAUTIFUL day :) Bright and sunny. So we stayed for mud festivities until 4pm. Gill and I were the only ones who decided to get muddy. We put on our mud clothes (i was a tad bit hung over) and back into the muddy madness. We hit up a mud station first and painted each other. Remember, this mud is cosmetic so there is actually a specific way to 'wear' it. Paint it on, wear it a bit, rinse and repeat. lol. While
we were getting painted, these two old Koreans came up to us and take over...apparently we were painting each other wrong??? Of course i got the old korean guy and she got the old korean woman. They just painted our legs and arms. It was pretty funny. We were hoping for some more wrestling, but it was still monitored, tame, and boring. We did the obstacle course thingy again... man it really tears up your knees. You're trying to crawl through and it's just all sand Ugggg! The picture at the very top is from the obstacle course. We walked around a bit, stood in line for way too long to get painted with color mud, bu it was too long a wait. We got over it pretty quickly. We went back to the beach, rinsed off in the water, and layed out for a bit. A great last day at the mud festival :)
It wasn't until the next day we realized how SUNBURNT we were!!!

Bell rang for class... more on Mud Fest later :)