Boryeong Mud Festival

This weekend Mark and I attended the Boryong Mud Festival. It's located on the east coast of the country... about a 3-4 hour drive from Seoul. Basically, this beach town dumps mud all over the place and people (mostly foreigners) come and play in it. 

Below is a picture of what a lot of people look like (via Frommer's Events website). Unfortunately, I don't have any muddy pics of Mark or me as I didn't want to get my camera muddy. We didn't immerse ourselves in the mud quite like this, though... 

"The mud from Boryeong apparently contains important minerals which reduce wrinkles and remove excess oils from the skin surface. Medically, mud baths are also supposed to improve the blood circulation and stimulate new skin growth."

Read more:http://events.frommers.com/sisp/index.htm?fx=event&event_id=20903#ixzz0L35mAvZO&C

Here's a photo of the entrance of the festival. Unfortunately, it was pretty chilly and rainy all weekend. We still managed to have a great time. There are all sorts of events to entertain (if smearing mud on yourself and a beach aren't enough for you). They include: a huge mud slide, elephant rides, and mud wrestling to name a few.

Here we are at a grilled shellfish restaurant. We had live mussels, clams, scallops, and other shellfish grilled over an open flame. It was amazing.

Here's a lady who was working at the shellfish restaurant. Check out the hat! She didn't know where it was from, so Mark was more than happy to tell her about the Cardinals. :)

Later at night, there were flags representing a ton of countries hung up high. It looked so cool against the pitch black sky.

Here are me and Mark enjoying the cool night air and a few beers. Yep, that's a 711 behind us... they're all over the place here!

Here I am with a group of girls we came down with. The one in the middle is Jade, our co-worker's girlfriend. She organized the bus and hotel for everyone. She and her friends are Korean girls but speak exceptional English. They're a lot of fun!

Then, the coolest thing of the whole weekend happened. It started to rain gently right as the fireworks show started. Standing in the rain on the beach watching an awesome fireworks display is something I will never forget.

Near the end of the fireworks show, it started really pouring, so we went to a noraebang and sang a bunch of Korean and American pop songs. Then when we went back outside, there was a dance party on the beach.

The next day, it was very cold, windy, and rainy, so we didn't get to spend the day on the beach. Here are me and Mark in front of the beach.

We had a wonderful time and are both so glad that we were able to participate in this annual festival. I remember reading about this on other people's blogs... how cool that we are now able to check one more thing off of our "must do" list!

PS: When I uploaded these pictures, I noticed I had quite a few pictures that need to be posted on here. I plan on catching this blog up once and for all this week, so stay tuned...