MUDFEST

new photos up on flickr from the Boryeong mudfest last week, plus a few more at the beach on the 4th by Cory.

Mudfest was fun. We got really muddy, but not as much as I thought. It would definitely be something I'd go back to in following years. Our trip began 11p on a Saturday night. It was a 3 hour drive to the public bath house where we stayed the night for about 7 bucks, which included massage area, pool, baths, showers, multi-temperature saunas, restaurant, internet. What sucked though, was that we slept on mats on a hard floor with these plastic brick pillows..uggghhhh. Tipton and I were miserable. We did not sleep. Finally, I got up after a couple hours and hung out in the 80ºC sauna (about 180ºF) and felt a million times better, as well as a -3ºC (ice) room. So then it turned out not to be a total loss after that. Once the team woke up, we all stripped down, got to know each other better and took our showers. We ate a nice Korean breakfast and finally headed to the beach and the festival.

First, we found a spot on the beach to stash our junk and then dipped ourselves in a mud pool. Weird at first and we felt like clay pots in the sun. We all tried our hand at an inflatable game with mud smeared all over it. It was fun sliding around and falling a lot. There were a heap of photographers taking photos mainly of foreigners such as Tipton and I. We were celebs basically, and both foreigners and photographers ate it up. There were other events and games that we didn't come around to experience but we did get to ride down the huge mud slide and got mud in our eyes..ugh. So we dowsed ourselves with salt water in the ocean just a few feet away to get "clean". We ate, swam, and relaxed thereafter, but only to go back to at least get "painted" with mud – yep, different colors. I felt like a kid. We got washed off again, swam more, relaxed more, ate more, went home. Can't wait to go back next year..