Credit: Special guest blogger, Shirley, wrote most of this entry. I contributed more towards the end.
Our next adventure would take place in Boryeong, commonly known as Daecheon, where the oh
so famous and foreigner friendly Mud Festival takes place. Boryeong is a small city located in South Chungcheong
Province. It is
located on the coast of the Yellow Sea, so it boasts many of the typical
attractions like 회 (raw
freshly sliced up fish), animal life in tanks waiting to be eaten, beaches, and
a small theme park name FILLLAND, and no it is not a typo-there really are
three L’s in Fillland. But what
attracts people specifically to Boryeong is Daecheon Beach
and the Boryeong Mud Festival.
The Boryeong Mud Festival attracts about 2 million visitors
every year over a period of 2 weeks. The festival is a widely known in the
foreigner community because the event gives foreigners an excuse to drink with
other foreigners and run around half-naked. Sounds like college! The mud
contains minerals used in cosmetics and is supposed to be really good for your
skin. The grey goop is trucked in from the Boryeong mudflats and dumped onto
the Daecheon beach area so people can get muddy, then wash off in the sea.
We decided to go July 14th which is the first day
of the 15th Annual Boryeong Mud Festival. Later into the season, a bus line opens up
from Gwangju to Boryeong, but this early on into the season that line was not
available, so from Mokpo
to Boryeong we took the train and made one easy transfer in Iksan. The train ticket cost about ~17,000 won to
Iksan and about ~3,000 won to Daecheon Station.
Altogether the train ride was about four hours long.
 |
Headed to the Boryeong Mud Festival on a dreary day.
More than 90% chance of rain leading up to 100% humidity! |
We arrived at Daecheon Station to meet up with Shirley. When you arrive at the station during the Mud
Festival season a foreigner friendly customer service table is set up. Ask as many questions as you like because
they are super friendly and willing to help you out. At the station, the foreigners outnumbered
the locals and everyone was busy trying to find their way to Daecheon Beach. We decided to first go to our accommodation
to drop off our stuff. The taxi ride
cost 10,000 won. We were dropped off in
a parking lot surrounded by Hotels and other accommodations. Our search for our accommodation, SunPension or Sun Minbak (썬민박), began and within ten minutes we almost lost hope and started walking
towards the beach, but luckily Nari’s Korean saved us and we found Sun Pension on the second floor of some small building next
to a row of Korean seafood restaurants and a white dilapidated building in the
shape of a boat. Small wonder we had a
hard time finding it. We paid 30,000 won
each for the room (total cost 120,000 won) and for how much we paid it really
wasn’t worth it. (Unless you book months
in advance, the going rate of accommodation will undoubtedly be 20,000-40,000 won
per person. No lie!) To sum it all up, the room was small, mosquitoes had found
their way in, and the shower had no pressure, but at least there was no mold!
For more accommodation options, check out this website:
 |
| Sun Minbak (썬 민박) |
 |
| Interesting building / boat / restaurant |
For the first part of our trip we tried to mud proof
everything as best we could. We all
placed our money, cameras, and cell phones in individual zip lock baggies and
proceeded to place those baggies in larger baggies. I decided to strut around with an oh so
fashionable plastic shopping bag where as Nari just decided to show off and
hide her valuables in her monumental cleavage.
Once we were mud proof and UVA/UVB proofed we set off for our 15 minute
walk down to the board walk. On our way down to the festival we saw taco food
tucks, bagged cocktail stands, sharks in tanks, and even Indian clothing shops.
It was an interesting conglomeration of eastern and western culture.
 |
| Mussels the size of frisbees |
 |
| Lots of seafood restaurants line the road leading up to the Mud Festival |
 |
| Poor sharky :( |
When you arrive at the festival there are free activities outside of the gated mud area which include, colored mud body painting and the beach concert/stage. To get into the gated mud area you have to pay 5,000 won for a wrist band. In the gated mud area there are water slides, a mud wrestling pit, a mud pool, and a mud prison. All of these have a really long line, but if you want the full experience I recommend you buy the wrist band. However, I should warn that in the morning they were limiting the number of people allowed into the gated area, and they were even turning people away because they were already sold out, so if you really want to participate make sure you buy your ticket early on.
 |
| Waited at least an hour to get color painted, but it was worth it! |
 |
| They ran out of afternoon tickets?! Noooooo :'( |
Our day was mostly waiting in line to do something. First, we waited in line to get our bodies
painted in colored mud. Everyone was
being super creative with their color choices and being the art major slash
hipster that I am, I wanted to go against the mainstream. I decided to have my face and body painted
with diagonal stripes in red, yellow, blue, and purple. Once subjected to the rain, the red and
yellow combined to make orange, and the yellow and blue combined to make green,
so I looked like a rainbow!
FABULOUS! An old Korean man took
my picture and so did another young foreigner.
When I asked the young foreigner where he was sending the pictures he
said Facebook, so maybe you’ll see me someday.
Oh heyyyy, I might be Facebook famous.
 |
| Nari looking cute~~ |
 |
| Yuri getting painted |
 |
| Getting creative with diagonal rainbow stripes |
 |
| Looking fabulous as always ;) |
 |
| Shirley getting painted |
 |
| The paint is still wet! |
 |
| Ready to take on the festival! |
 |
| We are people of color :) |
 |
| The mud is starting to dry on our faces ... can't smile or it will crack! |
Next we waited in line for New York style hot dogs. They were delish. Then we found out that they
were selling wristbands again, so we got in line and paid our 5,000 won. We got into the gated mud area, took off our
shoes, and started walking amongst our fellow muddy foreigners. We were all kids again. Remember when you were little and your mother
couldn’t keep you clean, or you would jump into a puddle because you wanted to
see it splash? Well apparently when you give adults some alcohol and mud to
play in they turn into a bunch of kids. If
you value your camera or cell phone at this point I recommend you buy a little
special water proof pouch. You can see
them selling it around the festival.
Anyways, we waited in line to try out the water slide. Pee before you wait in line because I had to
ditch the line at some point so I could wait twenty minutes in another line so
I could go to the potty. Fortunately, my
friends stayed behind and I just snuck back in, but that could have been a
disaster.
 |
| Water slides |
 |
| The lines for each attraction often doubled back on one another |
 |
| More people partying on the beach |
 |
| And then it started drizzling / raining |
 |
| Jee-Hyun & me going down the water slide. wheeeee~!! |
After the water slide, we were done with the festival and
decided to go to the beach, take a dip in the water, snap some photos, meet up
with some friends, and head back to the pension to take showers and get ready
for dinner and night life. Honestly I
didn’t get all the mud out and I would be lying if I said I didn’t still have
mud in my ears the next day, but hey it’s all a part of the experience and
since everyone else is in the same situation, really it’s no big deal. We had dinner at a Jeju soup place where Shirley, Jee-Hyun, and I shared a pot of haemul ddukbaegi (해물 뚝배기). The stew was loaded with an assortment of seafood: shrimp, a giant clam, a huge mussel, baby octopi, a couple of snails and some vegetables. Words can't describe how delicious the broth was, probably the best broth I've had in Korea. I couldn't get enough of it! While we were eating out of the corner of my
eye I saw a drunken foreigner with a rainbow afro rubbing his stomach up
against the window…and I thought “Is this a sign of the shenanigans I will bear
witness to later this night?” I waved my
finger at him and shook my head before he ran off in the pouring rain to
terrorize some other tourists.
 |
| Lots of visitors playing in the water |
 |
| Jee-Hyun babyyyyy!! |
 |
| Shirley broke her flip flop. oohh noooo! |
 |
| My token Hispanic amigos. Es verdad. |
 |
| Haemul ddukbaegi (해물 뚝배기): Best seafood soup ever! |
 |
| Time to use a bigger spoon ... aka the ladle |
 |
| Shirley & Jee-Hyun |
After dinner, we headed back to the mud festival area to
meet up with a friend, who was in turn, waiting for his friends. Lots of
foreigners loitered at this 7-Eleven on the corner of a busy intersection. It
was drizzling and many had their umbrellas up. Upstairs was probably the only
club in Boryeong bumping electronic beats and shooting green lasers behind the glass window above. A huge line formed to get in. It quickly dissipated when we
learned that the cover charge was 25,000 won. If there were bars, they were full. Many wayward foreigners took to
the beach with bottles of beer and soju in hand. Others stood in the street
socializing trying to figure out if there were places to drink that weren't in the middle of the street.
So there I was standing in front of the 7-Eleven
with my friends when I looked over and recognized a guy also lingering in front
of the busy convenience store. “Hey, I
know that guy.” I immediately left my group and shouted his name, “Nick. Nick!”
He looked at me in disbelief, and at the same time, we exclaimed, “No way!”
Nick and I both graduated from Occidental
College and tutored together with the
Asian American Tutorial Project (AATP) every Saturday in Chinatown.
I knew he was in Busan with EPIK. He knew that I was in EPIK’s sister program,
TaLK. But we never found the opportunity to meet up or hang out. What were the
chances that after all these months, we would run into each other in the sleepy
town of Boryeong
in front of a random 7-Eleven hundreds of kilometers from home? It was like one
of those unrealistic cases of serendipity that you only see in the movies. I still
can’t believe that happened.
 |
| SURPRISE OXY REUNION IN BORYEONG! |
We stuck around to watch a fireworks show before ditching
the party scene for a good old noraebang. Shirley was the only one really excited about
the idea, while I succumbed to singing for lack of a better idea. The rain started to come down with little sign
of letting up. I guess going inside to
belt out some hits wasn’t a bad idea after all. We
sang for a total of three hours. Each
hour someone new joined us. First Gio,
then Nick and his EPIK friends. Noraebang
was a raging success, and everyone seemed to have a terrific time. Shirley and I even sang Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call
Me Maybe.” That made my night!
 |
| Cube-shaped fireworks |
 |
| Some locals wanted to take a picture with us |
 |
| Singing Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" |
 |
| Singing F.U.N.'s "We Are Young" |
 |
| Call me maybe? |
 |
| Yuri & Shirley |
 |
| Noraebang ... Nari-bang? |
 |
| Nari & Yuri |
The next day, we ate lunch at a seafood restaurant
downstairs. I had another kind of stew with dried fish and bean sprouts. I forgot the
name of it, but the broth was delicious. I decided that Daecheon has better seafood / soup than Mokpo. The food was just that good.
 |
| Stew with dried fish and bean sprouts |
 |
| Really spicy gochu. I ate too many and gave myself a stomach ache :O |
Nari, Yuri, Shirley, and I boarded the same train headed south. Shirley and I chilled in the cafe cart and talked about life as the misty mountains and green agricultural fields whizzed by us. The Boryeong Mud Festival marked our last adventure together before our final farewell in Gwangju.
 |
| Boryeong to Iksan. Iksan to Mokpo. |
So if you're deciding whether or not to go to the Boryeong Mud Festival, I say: Do it! Even though there isn't heaps to do in Boryeong at night, the opportunity to slather mud all over yourself is once in a lifetime. If you're aching to speak English and interact with fellow foreigners, this is the place to go. I really felt right at home by the beach surrounded by a diverse body of people. Being at the festival reminded me of Cali. We actually ran into quite a few people that we knew from our province and from our program, so it was great to see some familiar faces. If I could do it all again, I definitely would. I would just suggest getting there earlier if you intend on participating in the mud activities / attractions. I would also suggest booking your accommodation far in advance if you don't want to pay 30,000 won to sleep on the floor of a dinky ass room. Happy travels!
**More Mud Festival Pictures from MSNBC**
No comments:
Post a Comment