Boryeong Mud Festival
The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual festival which takes place during the summer in Boryeong, a town around 200 km south of Seoul, South Korea. The first Mud Festival was staged in 1998 and, by 2007, the festival attracted 2.2 million visitors to Boryeong.
The mud is considered rich in minerals and used to manufacture cosmetics.
The festival was originally conceived as a marketing vehicle for Boryeong mud cosmetics.
Although the festival takes place over a period of around two weeks, it is most famous for its final weekend, which is popular with Korea's western population. The final weekend of the festival normally on the second weekend in July.
Attractions
For the period of the festival several large attractions are erected in the seafront area of Daecheon. These include a mud pool, mud slides, mud prison and mud skiing competitions. Colored mud is also produced for body painting. A large stage is erected on the beach, which is used for live music, competitions and various other visual attractions.
A small market runs along the seafront selling cosmetics made using the mud from Boryeong. Various health and beauty clinics offer massages, acupuncture and other treatments utilising the medicinal qualities of the mud. The festival is closed with a large firework display.
Your Guide to Korea’s Boryeong Mud Festival
South Korea is adept at finding reasons to celebrate. Their selection of festivals ranges from the freezing—the Hwacheon Ice Festival—to the entomological—the Muju Firefly Festival—to the fiery—the Goesan Red Pepper Festival—to the insane—the Cheongdo Bullfighting Festival.
But when it comes to international attendance, spending, and debauchery, none rival the Boryeong Mud Festival.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization, it is the Boryeong Mud Festival—or Mudfest, as its colloquially called—that brings in more foreign bodies to the country than any other event.
In a yearly July migration that could rival Chinese New Year, thousands of Korea residents migrate to Boryeong, on the west coast of the peninsula, to attend Mudfest, which occurs mainly along the clear waters of Boryeong’s Daecheon Beach.
More fly in from neighboring countries, and tourists from as far off as Europe and America plan their visits to Korea around it. Normally a quiet and placid beachside town, Boryeong is transformed into Northeast Asia’s premiere shit show one weekend a year.
It didn’t begin this way. The festival was created in 1999 to promote cosmetics made from Boryeong mud. According to the organizers, Boryeong mud is high in minerals—particularly germanium and bentonite—and it radiates infrared rays, which are great for the skin.
But it wasn’t long before the marketing of mudpacks took second place to the enormous party that occurs in tandem on the beach.
What to Expect
It begins in the morning, when busloads of tourists arrive and head straight to the beach, which will be prepped full of mud (much of it trucked in).
Separate sections—some with admission fees, some without—are set up and filled with mud slides, mud pits, a mud prison, giant mud baths, a children’s area, mud fountains, and a mud swimming pool.
The point is to get as muddy as possible, so that by the end, everyone looks like an extra in a monster movie.
Moon Sunyoung is a tour guide who took two busloads of foreigners to Mudfest in 2013 and 2014. “Getting muddy in a bikini isn’t something you get to do every day,” she says. “You get soaked with mud, jump into the ocean, get muddy again, get your friends muddy, get strangers muddy, and drink a lot of beer.”
Like it is in Korean daily living, drinking is a big part of Mudfest, even though city officials prefer it weren’t. “Many people drink a lot ‘til the morning,” says Haillie Lee, an official at Boryeong City Hall.
“We don’t want them to drink on the beach; and they leave their trash—some even throw bottles on the street. It is very dangerous.”
Probably because, as she says, the festival and its spin-offs also bring in over $40 million a year and create plenty of jobs.
So it’s worth it for them to keep it going, despite the mess it leaves behind.
Expat Allison Lee (no relation to Haillie), from Portland, Oregon had a typical experience when she went to Mudfest with Moon.
“Getting on a bus at 7 a.m. hungover with a beer in one hand and a Hot Six (a local energy drink) and soju-filled water gun in the other, I was pumped to get out and play on the beach,” she says. “We all were between buzzed and stumbling by the time we made it to Boryeong.”
“Covering yourself in mud and drinking on the beach with thousands of randoms was fun, but more importantly, the fest was also where I cemented some of my friendships that first year,” she says.
Sarah McCabe of Calgary also went in 2014, and is loath to describe it as any sort of “well-being” experience, no matter how medicinal the mud. “It was a drunk fest, with mud as a playful catalyst for shenanigans and debauchery,” she says.
It’s not only foreigners who show up, in fact, there are probably more Koreans at the event.
But once everyone is covered in mud, it’s hard to tell who is who until you start a conversation.
But virtually no one who goes ever speaks badly of it.
Heather Goldring, of Burlington, Ontario, went in 2013.
She lost her backpack on the train there, and her phone and wallet in the tide.
“But I had booze and friends, so it was all good,” she says. “After going swimming to wash off we came across a stage with a DJ spraying water and danced. It was awesome.”
While most of the activities occur during the day, there is plenty to do at night including concerts and Korean barbecue.
By nightfall, Heather had seen almost every foreigner she’d met, “all outside drinking and wandering from mart to mart to the beach.”
Heather stayed in a random motel, and woke feeling hungover with joy.
“That was probably one of the best days I had in Korea,” she says. “I lost my phone, bag, inhibitions—and it was awesome.
I never went back to Mudfest because I didn’t think anything could top that.”
How to Plan
This year, Mudfest will run from July 15 to 24, but to get the full madness, schedule your visit over one of the weekends (if not both, but that might be a bit too much mud).
You can purchase one pass to get into all these ticketed events; passes are just under $9 (10,000 won) for adults during the week,
and $10 on the weekend, with discounts for children, seniors, and large groups.
You can buy them at the festival or in advance and they will last you one day.
Purchasing a ticket pays off, because the ticketed areas have the inflatable playgrounds, obstacle courses, mud pool slides and races.
There are options, including the traditional minbak, where everyone sleeps together on mats on the floor. Most budget hotels don’t advertise online,
so your best bet is to pop into the dozens of hotels around the beach or in town when you arrive.
If you insist on planning in advance, you’ll have to pay the price, as only the more luxurious spots except online reservations (in Boryeong, luxury equates to around $100 a night).
The Korea Tourism Organization’s 1330 hotline is a godsend for those who don’t speak Korean or need help at any time during their trip. Simply pick up a phone, call 1330, and press 2 for English, and someone will be there to help you find what you need or provide translation.
What to Do
Besides bopping around from inflatable slide to mud tub to massage zone,
Other highlights include the festival’s mini-Tomatina on the 16th and the Black Eagles Show with Korean Air Force,
which occurs daily.
Thanks to a partnership between Boryeong and Buñol, Spain.
The famed La Tomatina is a lot like Mudfest, just replace the mud with tomatoes.
The air show will take place on Daecheon beach and La Tomatina at the Mud Square Special Stage. If you’re feeling particularly agile with the mud, take part in the football championship at the Mudflat experience site, New Plaza Beach on the 16th.
How to Get There
All North American flights land at the Incheon International Airport near Seoul.
Once you get to the airport, a bus for Boryeong leaves five times a day from Stop 09D on the first floor of Incheon International Airport.
You can buy the tickets at the terminal or pay the driver.
From central Seoul, there are express buses to Boryeong from the Central City Bus Terminal.
If you’d prefer to go by train, there are regular departures from Yongsan Station or Yeongdeungpo Station to Daecheon Station. You can book online up to a month in advance.
Dave Hazzan reads, writes, and drinks in Ilsan, South Korea.
About This Festival
Location Unconfirmed
Daecheon Beach
Getting dirty has never been so much fun. Beauty product for some, excuse to channel their inner child for others, Boryeong Mud means many things to many people. This filthy festival involves wrestling, sliding, massages, and photo contests.
A Dirty Marketing Idea is Born
The idea for the festival began in 1998 as a promotion for the mineral-rich mud found near Boryeong,
South Korea.
they invited visitors to slather themselves in the stuff.
The event took on a life of its own rather quickly,
attracting thousands of visitors to this otherwise sleepy town annually for the beach,
the warm weather, and, of course, the mud.
Things Get Dirty Fast
Fueled by word of mouth,
the festival has become an international phenomenon.
Families picnic under beach umbrellas,
toddlers splash in the kid-friendly area,
and the under-30 crowd (generally traveling English teachers,
members of the military, and students) are the front-and-center partiers inside an inflatable mud wonderland.
Festival-goers have their pick of competitive activities like the Mr. Mud contest,
mud wrestling, mud races and even a mud boot camp.
pottery demos, soap-making and lounging on Daecheon Beach.
There's no need to worry about getting all this gooey grey mud out of your hair, either:
showers are abundant and available for a modest fee,
as are lockers that can be used to store a fresh and clean outfit.
albeit a less effective one if you plan to impress after your mudbath.
Finally,
after you've wallowed in Boryeong's thick gray ooze,
you can pick up some of the local beauty products,
including mudpacks,
mud shampoo, mud soap, mud sunblock--remember, this was the original intention of this festival!
More Than Just Mud
Although the main attraction is, of course,
Boryeong features an impressive entertainment lineup as well.
Pop and hip-hop performers from around the world affirm its status as an international event,
providing an eclectic soundtrack to the wet and wild madness.
Don’t miss the huge global rave on the evening of the closing ceremonies,
or Friday’s Korean b-boy show.
as well as parades and other cultural performances during the week.
In the end, the thing that sets Boryeong apart is the mud play.
The spirit of conviviality across cultures and ages is a function of the anonymity everyone experiences while covered in mud.
As Jae-Sang Lee,
Director of Korea Tourism Organization, says,
“The most distinctive point of the Festival is to create a united place where people from all over the world come together, meet and interact with strangers and are able to break down walls of age, nationality, race and have fun together and leave with memories and new friends.” All are one under the mud.
Immerse yourself in nutrient-rich mud at the spirited Boryeong Mud Festival, one of Korea's most popular summer festivals!
The festival takes place on Korea's west coast at Daecheon Beach in Boryeong of Chungcheongnam-do, a few hours ride to the south-west from Seoul.
The festival began in 1998 to promote Boryeong as a tourist destination and has since grown to become a major festival well known throughout the nation and abroad.
Daecheon Beach,
the venue of the festival, is the largest beach on Korea's west coast and is famous for clear waters,
ideal for swimming,
and an array of water activities to enjoy.
The area is also well known for its nutrient-rich mud that has health benefits for the skin.
you'll get more than your share of refreshing mud as you pamper yourself with mud massages and enter the mud pool.
Thanks to its unique theme and energy-charged atmosphere, the Boryeong Mud Festival is one of the most popular Korean festivals among international residents and tourists.
At the Mud Festival, there are so many fun and unique mud-themed activities that you might miss out on if you didn't do your research beforehand.
Read on to learn more about the mud beauty therapies and other highlights of the festival!
First, head to the Mud experience zone to make soap or miniature character statues using the well-known Boryeong mud.
(tube) and slide down the
all-time favorite Mud Pool Slide into a vat of oozing mud.
Make sure you get at least a bit of mud on you as soon as you arrive at the festival grounds or
you'll risk being locked up in the Mud Prison with other
‘mud-less’ visitors.
Top Mud Festival Events
The Self Massage Zone is the perfect first stop for timid visitors or the beauty-conscious.
Simply reach in or use a brush to spread the mud all over your body and wait for about
10 minutes
until the mud turns white before washing yourself off in the ocean. The mud is said to be very good for your skin,
so feel free to repeat the process as many times as you like!
② Mud Pool Slide
Quick Tip - If you cover yourself with mud before going down the slide, you'll pick up even more speed as you barrel down into the mud pool at the bottom!
③ Giant Mud Bath
Sponsors / Management
Boryeong Mud Festival Festival Organizing Committee / Boryeong-si
Introduction
Of the numerous festivals in Korea, it is the Boryeong Mud Festival that probably attracts the largest number of international visitors.
tourists flock to the area to experience the beneficial properties of the Boryeong mud,
and also to have lots of fun. Fully immersed in the both the mud and the festival’s great atmosphere, visitors enjoy mud wrestling, mud sliding and even swimming in the mud mega tub. Visitors feeling particularly energetic can try the marine mud-training course,
whilst those looking for something more chilled can relax in the mud massage zone. In the evening, music and fireworks continue the party on the beach.
Programs
[Experience Events]
- Mud Game
- Mud obstacle Marathon
- Mud baths & Massages
- Mud Slide
- Mud Kids Land
[Night-time events]
- Opening & Closing Ceremony
- Air Force Band Concert
- World Beauty Mud Festival
- Boryeong citizens Music Concerts
[Other Events]
- Mud-time Character Performances
- Citizens Tower Square Open Concert
- Traditional rhythm of Korea, Pungmul
- Mud yacht and Mud parade
- Air Force Black Eagles Air Show
[Special Exhibition]
- Boryeong Mud Festival Photo Exhibition
- Boryeong specialties, crafts sales Exihibition
- Mud cosmetics, festive Character Goods & sales exhibition
*Program details are subject to change and vary each year. Find more information at the official webpage.
Admission/Participation Fees
Free hands-on activity site & Paid hands-on activity site
[Paid hands-on activity fare]
* Individuals
Adults: 10,000 won for one-day pass
Teenagers: 8,000 won for one-day pass
* Groups: 9,000 won for one-day pass
* Families: 7,000 won for one-day pass
* Free
Seniors (ages 65 and over), babies (ages 3 and under, must be accompanied by an adult), people with disabilities plus one guardian, etc. (proof required)
Age Limit
All ages
Transportation
[Bus]
From Seoul Central City Bus Terminal, take an express bus to Boryeong (보령).
From Boryeong Bus Terminal, take a bus bound for Daecheon Beach. (10min intervals)
From Yongsan Station or Yeongdeungpo Station, take a train to Daecheon Station.
From Daecheon Station, take a local bus bound for Daecheon Beach.
Boryeong Mud Festival 2016
After a month of a bad news fueled fug, I
All due respect to the horrors,
the death, the downward spiral of the election cycle,
but nobody can stay in that headspace for long without going crazy.
We all need a balance.
It’s also important to remember why we are going through all the hardship,
and why we have to keep fighting for what’s right.
So I headed over to Boryeong for the big famous Mud Festival.
This post is about 30% a report on the festival and the rest is focused on the great things that happened to me there to help me recharge all my joy batteries.
I saw amazing pictures like this one all over their website,
Facebook and the internet in general.
It’s on the beach as well, which is always a winning proposition.
So I got all packed up, bathing suit, all the sunscreen, extra clothes and of course my towel, and set off for an adventure.
reality has shown me that if you read a great description,
but show up and it’s not true that you’re in for a disappointing time.
In Korea,
however,
I’ll read a great description, show up to find it isn’t true, expect to be disappointed,
then actually have a great time and walk away wondering why they didn’t just describe the real awesomeness in the first place. This trip was no exception.
The Expectation vs The Reality
Boryeong is on the opposite side of the country,
It took us about 5 hours to get there, but it was nice because we were on one bus the whole time and didn’t have to think about anything.
We got there around 2pm,
and quickly went to drop our stuff off in the room and change.
We also had to go hunt down booze and waterproof pouches for our phones and wallets.
So, it was probably after 3pm by the time we got TO the festival.
This may be the only real complaint that I have about the tour trip.
The main festival attractions closed down at 6pm, so we didn’t have a lot of time to try all the activities before they were done.
We had been led to believe that there would be a giant mud pit on the beach where people went crazy with mud wrestling and mud chicken,
and mud races,
and that off to the side there would be some pools and water slides. When we arrived,
we kept looking past all the inflatable slides, trying to find the mud pit without success.
Finally, I stopped a couple of caucasian dudes who were reasonably muddy and asked where it was.
I was informed to my shock and dismay that people were basically getting muddy by going
It turns out that the main festival is on Daecheon Beach,
which is a beautiful sandy beach, and the mud has to be trucked in for the array of water slides and inflatable games.
No wonder it was watered down. Several of the photos I’d seen online were not actually from Daecheon at all, but from the actual mud flats themselves in Namgok-dong,
where smaller events, including a 5k mud run, are held.
The mud festival lasts about 2 weeks and we were just arriving in town for the last weekend.
but we wouldn’t have had enough time to visit them that day anyway.
Don’t take this map as gospel, because all I could find was the name of the mud flats,
so this is just a rough idea of how far the mud beaches are from where the big party is.
And while the mud beach looks totally like everything I was promised,
the Mud festival itself looks like this.
At Daecheon Beach, the only way to access the mud was to go inside the fenced in area,
which also meant abandoning our booze and shoes. So we chugged our soju and headed in to see what there was to see.
Queues forever. As we selected a line to stand in,
we looked around with a great deal of skepticism.
The mud wasn’t mud, it was more like pottery slip
(grayish brown water with some clay dissolved in it).
All the activities were filled with this muddy water and people are mostly clean
(if wet) because going into an activity means you wash off any of the thicker “mud” you may have acquired being splashed while in line.
The line we were in was for the football (soccer) arena.
It was an inflated pool with inflated goals on either end.
It did look fun, but after the first 30 minutes of standing in line,
we were seriously questioning our life decisions .
We took turns holding the group place in the queue so people could get out and go pee,
and finally it was our turn to get in the arena.
We lined up against a group of Koreans and began to chase the beach ball around the pool.
So. Much. Fun.
Something magical happened in the moment we began to play.
All of my adult cares suddenly drifted away and the whole world was splooshing through the slippery not-quite-mud with a bunch of other grown ups who were all busily engaged in reviving their inner children.
I don’t know how many times I fell down, trying to take a kick at the ball and loosing my footing, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
I don’t know what the rules were supposed to be, or how many points were scored, but eventually, a referee came by to stop the game and pronounced the Korean team the winner.
My jaw hurt from laughing and smiling so hard.
I felt like the Joker (pre-Heath Ledger), a permanent huge grin stuck in place.
All I wanted to do was get in line for every other
game available,
but my top goal was the giant slide. My friend described it later as “a dirty inflatable playground for drunk adults.
It was all my dreams come true.” And the best part is that there was a dirty inflatable playground for kids in a separate area,
so we didn’t have to worry about any rugrats underfoot!
The line for the tall slide wasn’t too bad, but we lost a few people to the short slide and to the bathroom line.
Korea has figured out that women need more bathrooms than men, so there’s been a standard 3:1 portapotty ratio at nearly every festival I’ve been to.
This has usually been successful, but for some reason, the lines for the men’s bathrooms here were awful.
The weather was also being (at least for me) amazing. I was expecting to spend a day blistering under the sun and worrying about my sunscreen washing off,
while using mud like an African elephant to cool my head and shoulders. Instead it was cloudy and barely warm with a lovely breeze.
and I was blissing out on the total absence of heat and humidity, but some people were cold.
North Americans formed heat barriers around South Africans while standing in line in an attempt to keep them warm.
I was surprised to find that the giant slide dumped me outside the fenced in area, especially since my shoes were back on the other side at the entrance where I’d been asked to leave them.
I reconnected with some of the group and managed to get back inside right before they closed down. We got in one more line for the floating hamster wheel (which is a serious upper body work out, by the way, especially when it’s slippery!) but alas when we got out, the other attractions were closing down.
This is not to say the festivities were over, just that the inflatable pools and slides were no longer open and we had to rely on the simple pleasures of booze, beach and interesting people. The cool weather was also accompanied by some rough seas, so the “no swimming” signs were up and we were limited to wading in the fierce waves. The sea water was surprisingly warm, however, and we lingered around the surf for quite a while.
Your Moment of (Femini)Zen
The girl I was hanging out with is quite pretty and was approached several times by very flirty guys. One very determined guy came over to us in the waves and started chatting. His body language was very much “hey baby” and she was clearly interested in return. It looked like they were off to a good start, but then it got neggy. For those of you who don’t know, “negging” is the tactic of using subtle insults to break down a woman’s self esteem and raise a man’s own social value by comparison, thus making her feel vulnerable and perceive him as desirable. It is widely advocated by pick up artists.
First, he started talking about his sister.
At this point I was not happy about the situation, but I didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable, so I leaned over and whispered to her that if she wanted help ditching this guy to let me know. She was still into him, I guess because she wasn’t looking for a long term relationship here, she was willing to overlook some drunken weirdness. Then he busts out telling her she looks old! Now, I don’t think old people are necessarily unattractive, but in the patois of courtship, telling a woman she looks old is a crazy insult. I can tell she’s still trying to keep it all fun and funny even though it’s bothering her. Finally, she asked me what I thought about going back to this guy’s room. You don’t really want me to say, I told her. (because I’m going to drop a feminism bomb and generally people at parties don’t groove on that) But she insisted.
So, I let it go in the kindest way possible. I point out that he’s using these destructive techniques of insulting her to break down her self esteem and make her a more vulnerable target for the hook up.
I’m not telling this story to toot my own femism horn. I was really nervous to say these things out loud. I was scared the guy would get hostile. Worse, I was scared the girl I was trying to help would reject me, tell me I was overreacting or reading too much into it, or that it was “just a joke”. I’m telling this story because it was scary and hard. So if you think these things and are scared to say them out loud, know you aren’t alone, but also know this:
I watched her face as I was talking and it was like this gargantuan wave of relief that someone else was saying what she was thinking. She instantly agreed with me and after the guy gave up and wandered off (yay no agro), she thanked me for saying those things. And the nice part is, later in the evening, when she eventually found the guy she wanted to hook up with, I felt confident wishing her well because I believe that she’d been reminded of her own self worth and had found a guy that would make her feel good.
Oppan Gangnam Style
Returning from the beach to find the eerily abandoned mud park, it didn’t take me long to get to my other favorite travel activity: talking to new people! I ran into someone I’d met briefly in one of the lines who had also ended up separated from his group. We wandered around the waterfront chatting, and ended up having a great conversation about our lives and travels which was totally unmarred by any awkward flirting. Why I love A-spectrum folks: you can dive straight into a deep and meaningful conversation without all that useless weather-sports-job chit chat.
While we were talking, I found out that the K-pop sensation Psy was scheduled to perform on the beach. Which, again, just goes to highlight how bizzaro Korea is about promoting events, because there had been no mention in anything I read about this. In case you’ve been living under a box, Psy is the singer of the international sensation “Gangnam Style”, so he’s not just famous here in Korea, but nearly everywhere. I mean, imagine if you went to a festival and then halfway through someone was like oh yeah, Beyonce is gonna perform, too.
My newfound conversation buddy had a bus out that night, so was anxious about getting to see the show, and of course, whether or not the number one hit would be performed before he had to take off. When the music started, we were up on the street. The whole bluff overlooking the sea was packed with people, most of them holding up phones to see the stage. Maybe they were recording, but generally they were using the phone screen as a kind of remote lens so they could see over the heads of the crowd.It was impossible to get close to the railing and get a view, but I noticed through the throng that the beach near the water was almost completely empty. The stage was set up on the beach as close to the bluffs as possible, but it’s not a deep beach and the performance area was less than 30 meters from the ocean. We started walking away from the stage to find a place to break through the crowds and get down onto the sand, and by following the shoreline back up, we got very close to the stage indeed.
I don’t get star-struck too much, but I have to say that it was a highly surreal and awesome experience to be standing in the sand with the waves crashing a few meters to my left and Psy performing a few meters to my right. There’s something intoxicating and fulfilling about a huge crowd of happy people, and I will never get tired of looking around and going, “This is really my life! Wow!” And, in case you were wondering, my conversation companion did get to see Gangnam Style and we danced like idiots in the sand.
Serendipity
After the music, I drifted back to the sea to do some more wading. It didn’t occur to me to take my shoes off since they were waterproof sandals.
Unfortunately, the tide was dangerously strong, and in addition to taking the sand out from under my feet, one particularly intense wave took the shoe right off of my foot! After a few minutes of feeling around in the sand with my toes to see if it was buried there, I gave up on the shoe and headed inland where I promptly met some more friendly people who chatted with me and shared their beer, while I looked for a cheap pair of beach sandals to replace the ones I’d lost to the sea.
When they set off, i found myself alone once again with zero idea where any of my original group had gotten to, but I was entirely sanguine about it. As I walked up to the bathrooms before beginning a quest for food, I looked over and spotted my Busan Bestie standing in front of the convenience store chatting with a group of blondes. I can’t even tell you how many thousands of people were there that night, but we found each other without the aid of any social media. My bestie and went down to sit in the sand and one more of our starting troupe wandered up to join us. With our core group reassembled, we chatted about our experiences from the day and generally enjoyed ourselves. After a while of holding still on the waterfront, I finally started to feel the chill everyone was talking about and we got up to try to find food.It’s not that food is absent from Korean festivals, but they don’t have food stalls the way we might see in the West which are full of food that’s meant to be eaten while walking. Korean food is a very social event, so even at festivals, they serve food alongside a place to sit down with big group and eat it. As a consequence, the mud festival did not have much food on offer because there was nowhere to sit and eat it. Most of us hadn’t eaten since before leaving Busan and had a hefty appetite by midnight.
We found a chicken and pizza shop on the main road, but then because there were no tables, we joined a couple more military guys at their booth and they promptly shared their chicken and beer with us. We had ordered the cheese chicken, which is not like chicken Parmesan, and is instead a sort of fried chicken coated in the kind of cheese powder more often associated with cheese flavored popcorn. It’s actually not bad, and when you’re starving from a long day of drinking and playing on the beach it’s practically food of the gods. Of course we shared back with the Army guys, and they left us most of a pitcher of beer when it was time for them to take off.
The chicken was really filling and the pizza took foreeeever. Just as I was starting to think it might be worth taking the loss just to get out of there, they finally brought it to us in a box. I figured I’d eat it for breakfast, but then we became the bearers of serendipity rather than the receivers. On the way back to our pension, I ran into some more revelers who were super eager to find out where we got the pizza. Since it was still hot and untouched, I offered to sell it to them for what I bought it for (no pizza profiteering). I think the Korean girlfriend was going to cry she was so happy, and just couldn’t believe that a pizza fell into their laps. It makes me happy to know that somewhere, someone is telling the story of how they were drunk and starving at the Mud Festival when this white chick came outta nowhere with a hot pizza for them.
Ondol Again, Off Again
Sleeping arrangements were sparse but adequate. At least this time, I knew I was going to be sleeping on the floor, so it wasn’t a shock. To cut down on costs, the tour group had assigned us all roomies, and we stumbled in sometime after 1am, waking ours up with many apologies. The Korean Ondol is the magical heated floor that I was so grateful for in February and March. However, this has led to adoption of a sleeping “mat” that is quickly becoming one of the great cultural mysteries to me. When I lived in China, I was struck by how hard the mattresses were, and one of my Chinese coworkers even complained about how the mattresses in American hotels were too soft for her to sleep on. In Japan, I had a futon on a tatami frame.
The futon was thin, maybe 6-7cm, but it was cushy enough to take the edge off, and the tatami underneath was also a little springy. So, both of these Asian cultures certainly liked harder sleeping surfaces than we do in the West. Fair enough. But the Ondol mat is really just a blanket on the floor. Not even a thick blanket. You could almost imagine that being ok with like a squishy fluffy comforter, but no. It’s a thin quilt. In the winter I can understand not putting much between you and the heated floor, but in the summer all it does is protect you from sticking to the hardwood.
I like the notion of the pension, but the number of nights per year I’m willing to sleep on the floor is shrinking as I age. Just one more reason I really need a TARDIS. Anyway, thanks to alcohol and exhaustion, I did manage to sleep. And woke up the next day with only a mild hangover and several more hours to explore the festival grounds. I hadn’t known that we would still be at the festival for so long, and only had one set of clean clothes. It turned out that the water attractions were closed anyway, so while there were still people getting muddy, it was limited to the mud water jars placed around the plaza.
We managed to stay clean and took the time to better explore the area. As it turns out, the Boryeong mud is famous for it’s mineral composition and use in cosmetic products. The festival was once an advertising campaign for the cosmetics and has since become an epic party. There were several things that seemed to be permanent beachfront statues that were all about the mud, but since the mud itself is a major commercial export for the town, it wasn’t so surprising that they had statues devoted to it.
20160717_124420We also found the performing native Americans again. I feel like it’s starting to become some kind of David Lynch-esque running gag for my time in Korea that there are always guys dressed in intense and often highly mixed Native American garb playing flutes and pan pipes and selling dream catchers. One of them had bright neon fringe this time. And I saw more of them playing at a rest stop on our drive home! What is the deal Korea, seriously?
The Verdict?
Overall, the Mud Festival was a stunning success for me. I still think it could more accurately be called the muddy waters festival, but once I got over the initial shock of how different it was from my expectations, I had an amazing, endorphin fueled, oxytocin generating, dopamine flooding time. (Which is big brain chemistry talk for “AMAZEBALLZ!”) If I go back next year, I’ll make an effort to arrive Friday night or at very least earlier on Saturday so that I have some more time to play on the mud toys before they close down, and I’ll try to find a group that is hitting up the mud flats proper as well. I might also recommend getting a camel pack for water in addition to the waterproof pack for your phone and money. There were convenience stores everywhere, but most of us didn’t drink enough water, and it took me a couple days to fully re-hydrate. As far as fun things to do in Korea, I wouldn’t make a special trip to the country just for this one, but it was definitely a great reminder of love, friendliness, and joy that I really needed. And since there’s no bad time for love friendliness and joy, I absolutely recommend the festival to anyone who happens to be in Korea in July.
As the first semester draws to a close, I find that I’m still completely enjoying myself in Korea and at this job. I’m looking forward to some more fun adventures this summer including a vacation to New Zealand! I’m being joined soon by a dear friend and fellow globetrotter Jane Meets World, who is finally moving to Asia for the first time, so I get to use her arrival as an excuse to do even more fun things in Busan. And I’m already planning our “Korean Thanksgiving” holiday weekend trip in September. As much as I hope that things in the US make a turnaround for the sane, and as hard as it is to watch my friends and family to live there endure the hatred and vitriol that is being propagated, it’s important for us.. for me to remember that most of the things in life have the potential to be great, and that most of the world (including large parts of the US where the cameras aren’t always pointing) is a beautiful place filled with amazing people who can be your friend for a minute or a lifetime if you just open your eyes and your heart. Love is quieter than gunshots, but there is more of it.
2014 Boryeong Mud Festival on July 18 to 27
Enjoyable and exciting mud experience with people from all over the world
We are excited to invite you to Korea’s representative festival, the 17th Mud Festival at Daecheon Beach, taking place from 18th to 27th of July.
Over 3 million visitors from in and out of Korea come to have this exceptional experience with other visitors every year. At the same time, those famous media agencies such as Thomson Reuters, Cable News Network, Associated Press, L’Agence France Presse, Getty images Environment Protection Agency and etc are ready to draw the materials form the festival inthe first time.
This Korea’s representative festival that everyone loves is stepping up as an international festival.The most distinctive point of our festival is to create a united place where people from all over the world become one. Visitors can free themselves from their daily lives and participate conveniently without any preparation. Most of all, they can directly experience the well-known effects of mud on skin and beauty. While putting mud all over their body and meeting new people, they are able to break down walls of age, nationality, and race and have fun together. We provide not only just a festival but also a chance to enjoy well-being travel through the healthy effect of mud.
Daecheon Beach boasts the only shell-powdered sandy beach in Asian region. Visitors can enjoy the mud experience events and sea bathing at the same time. This year, a huge mud tub, various mud slide, colored mud zone, mud attack, mud fountain and a lot more events are waiting for festival participants; they will share unforgettable experience with their family and friends. This cheerful and interesting festival is the one that people around the world wait yearlong.
Boryeong Mud Festival 2014: Seoul, South Korea
Boryeong Mud Festival originates as a spiritual and physical cleansing celebrated on Daecheon Beach each year just outside of Seoul, South Korea. Travel to Korea during your East Asia expedition, and make the trip from Seoul in the morning Friday, July 19 or Saturday, July 20.
Direct from Boryeong Mud Festival…
For those of you new to Korea or to the festival this huge event is located on the west coast of Korea at Daecheon Beach, Boryeong in the South Chungcheong Province.
The area is known for massive mud flats that run all along the coast. The mud is great for your skin so a few years back the people of Boryeong thought they should invite others to learn about the special mud. They wanted people to know all about the health benefits from using mud products from the region. From then on the festival expanded. It has now been running for 16 years and it’s gained quite an international reputation for good reason.
There are mud slides, mud boxing rings and wrestling matches, color mud body painting, and mud trampolines. The festival also has a huge concert every night with famous Korean and international musicians performing. The beach itself is packed and when you get tired of the mud you can rinse off in the ocean. And the best part: It’s all in the name of good health!
Boryeong’s Mud Fest is famous around the world and even more so in Korea. If you haven’t been yet, it’s about time to jump aboard. If you’ve been going for years, we understand why. We love it too.
When is Boryeong Mud Festival 2014?
The 17th Boryeong Mud Festival will be held from July 19 to July 28, 2014 at Daecheon Beach, Boryeong.
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Muhammad Younis
Trekker & Mountaineer
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