Check!
Oceanside, under a hot sun in mid-July, old Korean ajummas and their husbands can be seen playing and thrashing in silky gray mud, joining little children and the tens of thousands of foreigners that descend into the small town of Boryeong in South Korea every year for the sole purpose of a full blown mud fight.
What: Mudfest 2010, the 13th Annual Mud festival that literally gets millions of people, Koreans and tourists, covered in gunk.
Where: Boryeong, Chungcheong Province
When: July 17th weekend
Why: Many people live their whole lives without being able to say "Yeah, I wrestled in a vat of mud when I was younger, swam in it really, and sure, it went down my throat, into my eyes, and in my ears, turned me into a mud statue, and I have never forgotten it."
Mud, really?: The event organizers claim the mud is good for the skin. No one cared. There was a clayish area where if you showed up clean, people were whipping chunks of clay at you. There was a colour mud area where you could paint yourself green and yellow. Then there was a huge tub of smooth silky grey gold and that was the most fun, except when you got it in the eyes and nose and mouth.
Hits/Misses: My favourite part was the Sunday, a few hours before I had to catch my train back to Seoul, when I was covered in mud, massaging it on my body. The fireworks was a close number 2. Least favourite part? The amount of money I spent because Im a foreigner.
People were booking tickets to this event months in advance. It was one of those rare festivals people actually looked forward to. A weekend away from life to lounge around on Daecheon Beach near the Yellow Sea, getting caked in mud, then running mad crazy into the salty ocean water, than running back into the mud, and then back into the crashing waves, while sipping on soju. Not to mention running into unexpected faces.
A great weekend.
Some photos courtesty of RM.
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