Ryan and I recently went to one of the most interesting festivals I've ever been to. Around 50 foreigners from around our area all piled onto a bus to make our way down to the coastal city Daechon. Unfortunately, our bus was one of the peculiarities of Korea. For some unknown reason that must have evolved after several bottles of soju, someone invented the Norae bus. Not only is it a bus, but it also has a Karaoke (Noraebang in Korean - literally "singing room") machine and when the bus goes anywhere, said Karaoke enthusiast has a helpless, captive and I might go as far as to say desperate audience. Some inventors have NO foresight. I would not call the bus ride especially musical ( as I believe you require tone and rhythm for that), but it was nonetheless entertaining! Despite our initial horror- the bus ride was great.
The Daechon beach mud is renowned as having healthful properties that are fantastic for your skin. To advertise this they have a mud festival every year where along with routine festival activities, such as games, live entertainment and fire works - they also have a few unusual activities. Although I didn't venture into the mud wrestling pit - I did partake in the mud painting as well as the mud slide. Essentially, you covered yourself head to toe in mud (sometimes they dumped buckets of it on you) (with your bathing suit on of course), go on the mud slide (a slide for people covered in mud to go on), go mud wrestling or just sit and admire yourself as a mud person until you dried. Once that happened you race into the ocean (great waves that day) washed it all off, and got to start all over again. It was amazing!!! There's just something very cool about a festival where everyone walks around coated in mud.
We stayed in a minbok with the other foreigners the first night we were there. A minbok is basically a room with a floor and blankets that you rent. Ours was very different because it was the bottom of a house. We easily fit 20 people into the 3 rooms. It was a little surprising as it had no hot water or screens on the windows, but it worked well for a night and Ryan and I rented a love motel the following evening.
It was a fantastic weekend!
Pictures will be posted when we eventually get them from our friends, and for clarity's sake, this festival was "recent" as in "happened since our last post. I'm not sure how we get so behind with this thing...