Every year, there is a mud festival in southern South Korea. People come for all different reasons. There is the cultural experience, the nice beach, the party scene. But what seems to make the difference is the mud. It's just fun. People cover themselves in it, sling, paint with it, throw it, crawl through it, and wrestle in it. But at the end of the day, one way or another, you find it on yourself everywhere (even in your ears). Here are some pictures to show you what I'm talking about.
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to go down there with a couple of friends and hopeful expectations. There was supposed to be a typhoon coming in later in the day with wind and lots of rain, but we opted to take our chances. It turned out to be very memorable experience. And even though my pictures ended up being few, that was just because I feared for the safety of the camera. We did mud wrestling, Sumo style, where you try to get the other person out of the ring. We got hooked up to harnesses that were bungeed to each other, then tried to run in opposite directions to get to a target. We went swimming to wash off the mud. We did front flips and swan dives off of this giant, blow-up mud slide. We painted our bodies with colored mud. And when we got tired of it, we went into the Yellow Sea to wash off. It only rained hard on us for about 10 minutes, then passed over.
It was kinda funny to watch the news and see something on "World News Tonight" (with Charles Gibson) that I had been to. I think it was Monday night's program that ran a story on International vacations, and the mud festival was one of them. I looked for my friends and I, but didn't see anybody I recognized. Maybe you'll eventually see Rebs and I at some exotic location on the TV. Just keep watching.
Rebs decided to stay home and get some good studying in. I missed her a lot, and I know she was sad that she didn't get to go, but she's been putting studying off for the past several months, and intends to take the National Counselor's Exam when we get back to the states in November. So she trying to kick it into gear until then. And I'm proud of her for it.
