We'd heard about this through friends and such over the years, and Chloe was dying to go. What is Boryeong Mud Festival you ask? Exactly that. Millions (yes, millions) of foreigners and Koreans gather on the beaches of Boryeong for their world famous mud, and spend the day playing in it, throwing it at each other, wrestling in it, sliding in it, pretty much anything you can think of to do with mud.
So we made some plans with our Ansan friends, woke up at 6am on a Saturday, and boarded the bus at 7:10. A two hour bus ride, and we arrive in the city of Boryeong. Deanne tried to find some directions to our hostel, and failing that, we set off in the rain. We were all dressed for the mud, so the rain wasn't a problem. Plus, it's really warm here, all the time. We wandered the streets in the direction of the hotels, and got a few suggestions here and there. Once we found it, we got a bit of luck, because check in time was 2pm, and we arrived around 10. Fortunately the room was ready! Two rooms, two bathrooms, no furniture. Haha, and it's 35$ a person, for 10 people! It had air conditioning though, and Chloe will pay anything for air conditioning.
One of the rooms in our hostel.
We dropped our things off, and set out to find the mud. There was a nice little brick roadway with lots of shops and restaurants, next to a boardwalk, next to the beach. We found some stone sculptures, and sand sculptures, and a giant stage. And then… MUD! There were tents
with all sorts of crafts, you could paint yourself with coloured mud, buy souvenirs, etc. There were lots of… hmm, what are they called… those giant air castle type things? There were slides, and race courses, and giant baths with a bunch of people sitting in them. That's right. Sitting. WHAT?! Fortunately we found one with people bouncing around in the mud, and we all jumped in to have at each other. It was pretty fantastic, strangers taking you down and helping you up and helping you gang up on friends. We got some good pictures. There was also mud prison, which is just a prison with bars on two sides, and the staff spray you with a mud hose. It actually looked kind of painful, so we avoided it.
Mud prison.
Castle race.
Mud Fest mascots... and Brandon.
Dee, Jaryt, and Adam wrestling in the mud.
We ran into lots of people we knew, and splashed around in the rain and mud. There was a GS 25 nearby (for all you Canadians, that would be a Mac Store, 7 Eleven, etc) so we bought beer (for all you parents, it wasn't for us… really). Korea has no laws, as far as we
know, about drinking in public. The beer is also very cheap, and in very large bottles they call pitchers. We spent awhile exploring, checking out the beach, meeting up with new friends, and then it was time for a shower. Mud is fun, but after awhile, you just want to be clean. Shower time also meant nap time, haha.
We woke up and found half of our friends also taking naps with us, so we all decided to find some dinner together. There was one pizza place, absolutely packed with foreigners, an hour wait. No thank you. There were millions of Korean restaurants, all the same, galbi,
samgyeopsal, and seafood, so we found one with tables and chairs (it's also not fun sitting on the floor when your feet are wet) and enough room for all of us. Then there was more friend meeting and drink buying (for friends, really!). Later in the night they had a concert, fireworks, and we spent awhile dancing to Korean songs and old school classics like Mambo Number 5. Chloe had some difficulties, because her new sandals bought specifically to get muddy had caused some rather painful blisters, and dancing on rocks is just not much fun. Oh, and the convenience stores by that point were just covered in mud! On our way home, we found a delicious pizza snack; it looks like an ice-cream cone, except they put sweet bean paste in the bottom, boo!
Hehe!
Pizza Cone!
Sleeping on the floor was rather comfortable (although we did find out that the pillows were stuffed with cut up straws), and we woke up at 9am. Everyone else was still asleep, so we wandered to the beach. It was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day, and we found a second, smaller area with more mud painting, slides, and that lame mud bath where no one was wrestling. We also found lockers, which helped that whole checking-out-at-noon problem. However, we did have some problems waking everyone up, huh.
Beautiful beach.
Enjoying the sun.
Mud pool (sans wrestling).
And that was pretty much it. We spent about 2 hours buying souvenirs, getting lunch, and enjoying the sun while avoiding the mud (nobody wants to be muddy on the bus, right?). Chloe bought some mud lotion, which seems weird when you think she spent 5$ on mud, but… it's famous, right? The bus ride back was four hours for some strange and annoying reason, but we got home in one piece, a little damp and slightly sunburnt. Definitely a worthwhile trip!
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