MUD

Mud Festival! This past weekend a group of friends and I went to Boryeong, which is on the western coast of Korea for it's annual Mud Festival. This small seaside city receives thousands of visitors for 2 weeks in July, but it's the final weekend that brings in the most patrons. It's probably most popular among foreigners, but it attracts all kinds. They haul in all this mud (from where? I don't know...) and hose it into these sort of troughs where you can paint mud on with a paintbrush, or just delve right in with your hands. The mud is supposed to be good for your skin; it was nice and smooth. The festival had inflatible slides, mud wrestling, music, and a whole bunch of stuff. Even fireworks later that night!

My group went with a tour group, Seoulite, which supplied us with a bus to and from the city and a single room (for 10 people...) in a pension to stay in. In retrospect, we could have done all right on our own for a bit cheaper, but there was no guaranteeing anything if we had. We were new to the whole thing, so we took the safer route.

Also, we bought these tickets, like, 3 months ago anticipating it to be a big weekend... and it was! I had a lot of fun lathering up that mud, getting it all in my hair and on my clothes and all my little nooks and crannys, and then rinsing off in the sea just to do it all over again! Of course, the beer helped too.

It rained a little bit during the day, which didn't really bother me seeing as I was already wet and dirty. It rained more later that night, but by that time we had retired back to the pension where we proceeded to play some card games, talk about I don't remember, and we even played EPIC MAFIA! That's right, Marybeth, I taught these people how to play Epic Mafia (a game which involves mafia members anonymously murdering innocent people and the investigation to figure out who dunnit. I think it was originally an online game? But the ONeill's adopted it and adjusted to play with a group of 6 or more). We had a blast and I hope we'll play it again in the future. Anyone who hasn't played it, try it! It's super easy and can get really intense!

And I'm not entirely sure how I managed it, but my camera survived the trip! I really wanted to take pictures, but I knew it would be a risk, what with all the mud and water and drunk foreigners.. But I wore a sort of fanny pack (it's actually a money belt... although, they did offer some necklace bags you could buy to hold your money/cellphone stuff) and wrapped it up in a plastic bag. And lucky me, it all worked out in the end! Yaay! This kind of stuff never happens to me, I'm such a klutz...

before...

...during... (p.s. i love the ass grabbing in the background)

... after! (photo credit: ryan mclaughlan)

PRECIOUS

alyissa and monica!

 Mud Fest is serious business.

sean is super thrilled despite his unfortunate expression. i was invited up there, OKAY?

A few of us didn't want to wait around for the bus to leave at 3 pm on Sunday, so we took the KoreaRail train home, which was way faster, got us home way earlier, but we had to sacrifice some comfort and opted for standing tickets. Yeah, the train sells standing tickets... Luckily, there were some floor space to pop a squat on.


And congratulations to my little sister for her graduation! I can't believe you're all done, girl. Like, I really can't believe it because I didn't know it happened until Mom told me after it had happened. Man, I'm a bad big sister! I should send you some sort of gift or card.... but then again you got me NOTHING from your cruise, not even something from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Ah well, I'm not one to hold a grudge...




Until next time, loves!
Anna

Sexy Thigh-highs

Last weekend, I traveled to the southern island town of Jindo in the Jeollanam-do Province for the Jindo Miracle Sea Festival. The sea opens up due to a change in tide and a mile and a half "road" connects the mainland to a nearby island. Hundreds of people come every year. It was really crazy to witness! 

Don't you just LOVE these stunning orange rubber boots? Giving a whole new take on sexy thigh-highs, huh? I also wore some comfortable traveling clothes, which includes the cool, polka dot button-up shirt I bought at the traditional market a couple of weeks ago. It's got a cute little rounded collar too. Hello layering!

-Anna-

shirt: open market, Korea

pants: American Eagle

jacket: borrowed from Cathy (thanks!)

bag: Payless

boots: Jindo convenience store

lol, failed jump shot.

I and a group of three other girls took a 6 hour bus ride to the southern island and stayed in a nearby home. Jindo is extremely small, so there aren't very many motels/pensions to stay in. Luckily we found this lady who rents out rooms in her home to visitors. She and her husband were really sweet, but they didn't speak a word of English, only Korean! We managed, though, and had a wonderful stay. Thanks, ajumma!

our cozy, little room ^^

The festival was along the coast and there were a number of different shows/tents set up along the strip. Mostly we just went along for the ride, since we didn't really know what everyone was saying, lol, but the costumes and music were fun enough. There were a lot of people too, Koreans and foreigners alike. People come from all over! We arrived in the late afternoon on Saturday, so we mingled around a bit, did the walk from island to island, had some pretty shady fair food and then were at a loss as to what to do once the festival was over around 7. Jindo is a beautiful island, but man, it's night life is seriously lacking. In fact, it's seriously nonexistent. We headed back to the ajumma's house around 7:30, ate some ramen, and hung out there until we curled up on the floor atop layers of blankets to sleep for the night. 

jindo puppies!

oh, hey, moses.

The next day we left around 3, so we explored the grounds a bit more, climbing up on the amphitheater seats and beyond to a sweet little lookout. It was so nice getting a change of scenery. I miss seeing grass. The fresh, sea air was nice too. I don't think I could live in a city for too long. I would miss nature too much! I mean, I don't want to go to the other extreme either and live in a cabin in the woods, but some wildlife/greenery is nice to balance out all the concrete and people.

I had a wonderful time, and look forward to more trips in the future. I'm staying in this foreign country, I would hate myself if I didn't take advantage of all the opportunities to see and experience all these cool new things!

Until next time,
Anna