I heard about Mudfest prior to getting to Korea and was looking forward to it for awhile now. Sounds a bit strange, right? Mud? Festival? Well it was just as you imagine it would be, except with better food and a lot more ocean.
Thursday night a new foreigner moved into my building (seems strange still to refer to myself as a "foreigner" being that I've been a native my whole life, but I digress). His name is Matt and he's a Texan. Believe me, he's NOT American...he's from Texas. I love those crazy Texans. Remember our Texas trip, Lan? What a riot. So we had to celebrate his first real day here, so on Friday night we went back to my place and drank quite a bit of soju, wine, and beer. We chatted about what brought us here and what should probably keep us here :) But bedtime came early, for Mudfest was in the morning.
Saturday morning did not start out nicely for me. I was hungover and tired and really could not imagine sitting on a bus for three whopping (W-A-R-P...whop) hours. But I dragged my sorry self to the laundry room so I could wash the sheets (when you only have one set and no dryer, you have to ensure you are away for a night to wash them). I got ready, packed, and ensured Matt was also ready (guy isn't yet used to Asian time and had been up since 5 am. Booze? What booze...kids!). We headed out a little late and wound up at Starbucks at 9:10 to meet Dan. Consequently, he wasn't there. McDonalds followed (perfect food at this moment) and we headed to the bus. WAIT! Where is the bus? Where the HECK is the bus (you can imagine other four-letter expletives were used instead, but hey! this is a public site)? We MISSED the bus?!
Not quite...but nearly. They held off until about 9:35 and that's pretty much when we boarded. I was reminded of Europe, of Alicia and I nearly missing the bus daily, and of my father, warning me he'd leave me there, "I swear to God, Bergamo, one more late morning and we are out of here without you." And we were off!
More conversations on the bus about what brought us here, what is liable to keep us here, and where to eat when you are craving this, that and the other, followed. It was nice to see these western friends again...nice to meet new ones too. I didn't bring anything to drink on the bus, save coffee and water, since, as one westerner said, "I hadn't been in Korea long enough". By the time the rest stop came around, everyone had alcoholically induced full bladders.
We offloaded, ate an amazing burrito (I'm told eating those in Korea is nearly impossible...booo!), and settled into our rooms. Ha!
Rooms are called "minbaks" and are the size of a single, small hotel room back home. Here, grab a blanket and pillow (filled with cut-up straws) and sleep on the floor. Behind all these people is a nice door leading to a porch, of sorts and there is a bathroom, located to the right of the photographer. Yes, this is roughing it. What a hoot.After sunscreen application and a quick straw hat purchase, we hit the beach. On the beach (which was heavenly, despite the crummy weather), were VATS of mud. In you go with your hands and grab a handful, rub it all over yourself and keep on keeping on. There were paintbrushes there for use as well...just painting on the mud. So after the mud application, the ocean awaited us. Jumping into the rather cool water was shocking, but feeling the mud come off and the gloriously soft skin that it left over was wonderful. More mud, more ocean...rinse and repeat.
(I know the picture is small and doesn't do the beach justice, but there must be some pixel trick I don't know about [since I'm not certain what a pixel is]).We walked around then, I drank a plethora of beer (BEER!), and we met more people than I can recount. Highlights were the stern man in the basement of the church (where we ended up sleeping...not in the room pictured above) who said, "if anyone touches anyone else's stuff, they ain't got no momma." He didn't so much SAY it as he loudly, forceably yelled it, but you get the picture. And we played some frisbee on the beach...and we saw our fair share of skin. In Korea it is customary to be quite conservative when dressing, so when we saw bikini after bikini, we were all pretty happy :) Nothing like a little exposed skin.
After freezing in the ocean air for a few hours, I stumbled upon a sign that said "FREE...(something, I can't remember)". I was thrilled. I love free. So I went to the Free Man and asked for my Free Thing. It was soap. In exchange for filling out my name (clearly I was Joelle Cadieux for the day) and my country of origin. He told me I looked cold (duh) and said I should visit the sauna. The WHAT now? There's a SAUNA here? I'm in.
So the men and I split up, since the sauna is single-sex only, and I went up to change. Into my birthday suit. In Asia, these saunas are common, as I found out later, and it is just unacceptable to wear your bathing suit. Well okay. So here I am, nude as a new babe, walking into the unknown. The doors open, paradise awaits. I'm not kidding: this place was Eden. To the left, The Sauna (its like a 500-square foot sauna for crying out loud) and showers. In the centre, a hot pool, a sea pool (also hot), more MUD for more painting (in the nude...I feel like an artiste), a mud pool (for to rinse off the mud...can this GET any better?) and a cool pool. Every single pool and area has a description (even in Englishee!) that describes why we are plunging our bodies in this particular liquid now. It was heavenly. I mean it. I have NEVER been to such a place. I so badly wanted to take pictures of the place, but you know that's just rude (nudity factor)...so you can see the outside only.
The place was nirvana. I was in nirvana? Who knows...it was perfect. THEN I blew my hair dry. This may not seem like a big deal, but I blew up my hair dryer on my first day here and haven't made it to the store to replace it. Mainly because my hair is doing this wave-y thing that I'm really digging. So I dried my hair...and it looked so polished (note: must buy new hairdryer...MUST). And I went back, warmed up and happy, into the rain. But my spirits were sky-high...no rain was getting THIS GUY down!We went back to change, since we were cleaner than we had ever been, and headed out to dinner with some others from the trip. Dan knew the secret here: seafood rules and cooking it yourself is the penultimate trip. Three HUGE baskets of seafood came out for us (only Dan and I ate...gorged is more like it) and we cooked it ourselves on a sunken-in grill, much like Korean Barbeque, Laur. It was SO good, even when the lights went out three times and we had to cook by candlelight. Romantic? Um, try food poisoning. So we were ultra careful. The food was amazing.
For the next few hours, we dodged the rain, went bar hopping, and wandered the streets. It was so beautiful there...the smell of the sea, the smell of freshly cooked corndogs (yes, it smells good and you know it), the sea (excuse the pun)of familiar faces. This isn't indicative of Korean life at all...one last chance at Western culture, eh?
One last swim in the ocean follwed the 2PM concert (apparently this is a band that is really popular with the teens here. I'm not even sure that they were there or that I saw them, but I told the kids that I did...crafty, I know), and then it was off to bed. Surrounded by snoring Dan and talk-in-his-sleep Matt ("MUD!"), I drifted off to sleep on the ground (literally on the ground). Morning came and here is what we looked like at the we-need-more-beer-to-help-us-feel-better-breakfast:
We caught the bus shortly after this picture was taken. Another three hours, a magnum of beer later, and we were home, exhausted, ready for the next adventure.
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