The Last Field Trip: Boryeong Mud Festival & Chunripo Botanical Garden

What an eventful weekend!  Early Saturday morning we boarded four large buses to drive to Boryeong for the 14th annual mud festival.  This festival is very popular among foreigners, offering mud slides, mud wrestling pits, mud jails, and other fun activities involving mud.  The festival is situated along the coast, so visitors could hang out on the beach where a stage hosted various music artists.  Thousands of people swam in the ocean and floated around on rafts and inner tubes.  I wore an old bathing suit and black shorts, which I threw away at the end of the day.  They were definitely beyond repair.  Any reservations I had about walking barefoot into public bathrooms, swimming in a giant pool with strangers from all over the world, and getting completely dirty in general immediately disappeared when I saw how much fun everyone was having; I couldn't wait to get a little muddy, too! 

Getting crazy in the mud wrestling pit!

Absolutely filthy.

The only downside to this event was all of the mud that got in my eyes.  We spent most of our time in the mud wrestling pit, pushing one another down into the pool of mud.  Someone would push me down, filling my eyes with mud, and as I would try to stand up again, someone else would push me down again.  This may not sound like fun, but I could not stop laughing!  I have some bumps and bruises, but it was worth it to get completely filthy.  Most of the day I felt like I had cataracts; everything looked cloudy and my eyes burned.  My eyes were bloodshot for the rest of the night as I tried repeatedly to wipe the mud-goop out of my eyes.  I feared waking up blind, but alas, all is well now.  

Mud wrestling

It was a little rainy when we arrived, but the for the majority of the day it was sunny and hot - perfect weather to play in the mud! A friend and I both woke up with crusty eyes, and I'm pretty sure there is still mud in my ears.  All in all, this was one of the highlights of the trip!

In the ocean!

After the mud festival, we drove an hour to stay in a pension by the shore - a homey, hotel-like place with traditional Korean-style rooms.  The girls were lucky enough to get 2-person beds - the guys had to sleep four to a room on the floor with mats :)

A Korean-style Pension

The beach

Feeling good!

For dinner, we had Korean barbecue, soju, and beer. After, we all partied together on the beach - a great way to end a fun day.  Waking up early today was a little rough, but we had a lovely breakfast of fried rice waiting for us.  To be honest, that had a hint of sarcasm in it...I am ready for some pancakes and bacon.  Before we left for Seoul, we ventured to the Chunripo Botanical Garden, where we toured the grounds.  This was a little tiresome for most of us who were exhausted from the night before:

At the Chunripo Botanical Garden

Now, we are back in the dorms.  We are tired and ill-prepared for class tomorrow.  What is most upsetting is the sadness beginning to creep into our minds, the understanding that the end of our summer in Korea is a week away from completion.  It's hard to believe that I've been here for three weeks now and that in one week, I'll be back at home.  While I'm certainly homesick and ready to see the people I miss and love, I will be truly sad to leave this place - Korea has been absolutely wonderful to me.   


NOTE:  I temporarily removed the Mini-Series post about my DMZ trip.  I don't know how the internet is monitored here, and I definitely do not want to cross any lines.  I will update the blog about that experience afterwards!