Back to the Grind...

Hello Blogosphere!

It's been awhile since I last posted. Let's just say the last two months of my life have been a whirlwind; what with the finishing of my contract and then signing another one, thinking I will have to move and then ending up staying in the same place, bosses and misunderstandings, and, most importantly, my trip back to the homeland (more to come on that). I think it's mostly been a good whirlwind and I'm so happy to be back in the ROK for six more months of fun and games and teaching my little nosepickers.

I think I left off at one of the best weekends of my life, so let's just pick up from there, shall we?

Mudfest is a huge thing in Korea. In fact, I don't think any foreigner is able to enter and spend any amount of time in the country without someone mentioning Mudfest and explaining how kickass it is; therefore, I had known about the festival pretty much since I arrived a year ago and had been looking forward to it all year. Just think about it:

mud+beer+beach+beer+friends+fireworks+beer+hilariously catchy music+mud-related games+beer.

Is there any better combination? Probably. But this festival is definitely up there.

We set out early Saturday morning on the 12th of July- some still awake from spending the night in Now Bar (not me, Mom) and clammered onto the 6 o'clock train bound for the city of Boryeong; home to Daechon beach and Mudfest (the latter being found there only two weeks of the year). This is what we found when we arrived approximately 2.5 hours later:

Kenny G.- a favourite of mine and Grace's.

Mud and bikinis.

Totally wicked body painting booths, as well as several mud baths, slides, and wrestling venues. The mud is supposed to be really good for your skin, by the way, and they cart it over from the delta a few miles away from the beach.

Beach umbrellas being rented out! Thank God. Sunburn won this weekend, my friends. It got us all. We didn't even care about being extorted by the locals (30 bucks for an umbrella, really...).

We found around the clock live and recorded music blaring from the stage. During most of the day the theme music from Everland played, driving several crazy by the end of the weekend. At other times, some terrible Noraebang was happening and at others, actual bands played for the thousands of onlookers.

Amanda and Rachael found the mud prison for several minutes.

In all actuality, the fireworks were the best I have ever seen. They were really amazing. Someone set them up from a barge off the coast and they played really intense music while they were set off. Magic.

We eventually found our massive hotel room, which accomocated 30 of my closest friends and myself. It was interesting.

There was a lot of table dancing going on that night. And check out those sunburns!

As well as the ever present singalong at the end of the night. Priceless.