Boryeoung Mud Festival 2011!!!

This past Saturday produced one of the best memories I will take with me from Korea. I went to Boryeoung Mud Festival in Daechon Beach. And it was dirty, wet, and all together fantastic.

The Mud Festival started a few years ago in Korea, and since then is the largest event for foreigners in Korea. It has become so huge that one week of muddy debauchery on a beach produces enough revenue for the entire city of Daechon to live off of for an entire year. Seriously, that is a lot of beer sold.

Aaron, Minjae, Will, Dave, Jessica and myself started the long trip down to Daechon early Saturday morning. We had an hour subway trip, where we caught the train. The festival itself is free, but the train tickets, and bus transportation sells out, so we bought our tickets almost a month ago. You can opt for cheaper train tickets, but that means you have to sit on the floor, in the aisle. Sitting on the floor for a whole three hours while people trying to get to the restroom every ten minutes, because they have had a liquid breakfast of champagne or beer, while stepping on your fingers?? I said, no thank you... I will pay the extra money for a seat. Our train ticket was only 22,000won which works out to about $20. A free festival and widow seating on a train? Life was good!

Arriving in Daechon.. Ah. So fresh and so clean clean.

We got to the train station and had to take a crowded bus to the actual beach. None of us really new what to expect once we got there. And, as usually, it was nothing like I expected! Daechon beach was beautiful, even with the threat of rain, but the mud was actually not on the actual beach, like I was imagining.

We had to walk down some very large stairs to get to the actual beach, but at the top, the festival really took place. There were mud "buckets" where you went to paint yourself with mud, slides, food tents, and of course, thousands of people, drinking beer, and getting dirty!

Getting Dave nice and dirty!

Cleaning off in the water!

The water was surprisingly warm. We went in there when we were too hot, our mud was caked on, or if someone had to pee. I know.... gross.. But, if I had to bet.... the majority of people reading this have peed in an ocean or pool at leats once.  No wonder the water was so warm.

Really our entire day consisted of listening to a live band, throwing mud on each other, going swimming in the water, drinking beer, and repeating the cycle! We ran into some other foreign teaches from Ansan, which is surprising considering how many people were there!

Seriously, anytime I can roll around in mud with good friends, I am down! And, apparently the mud is good for your skin, so that is just an added bonus! By the end of the day I had mud on EVERY part of my body. I am still scooping out bits of dry mud from my ears, and haven't been able to get a brush through my hair quite yet, but those are small prices to pay for an extraordinary day!