12th Annual Boryeong Mud Festival
A weekend of mud and fun and sun, a wide unending beach, and endless lapping ocean, new arts and crafts, medicinal mud in multiples colors, new friendly faces and far off places. There was grey skies and sunshine, there was laughter and languid relaxation, beauty and wind, all away from the city, either of them, in the wilds of our extended homeland.
Saturday morning started with getting up a little earlier the normal, rangling myself and my things before clambering down to Alice's door. We grabbed a taxi and hauled it across the city to where the tour buses were waiting for us. We settled into the bus and made friendly with our neighboring seat people (Denise, Vivalin, and Jinjoo), who would in time become people we got to know very well.
Alice & I, all aboard for the weekend adventure
The trip on the bus was long, and our stops seemed to take about twice as long as was planned each time, but it was fun. I ended up in a neat conversation with Denise over my Kindle, because she had the original version. Which then led to a discussion on the latest version, and she gave my inside scoop on the newest, coolest place on the internet for me -- ManyBooks.Net; a place which makes readily available for download almost all the books from Project Gutenberg.
Eventually we did make the first stop -- the mud flats, where all the mud is brought to the main festival from, for our extreme training course.
The Mudflats
Denise, Me, Alice -- prepped for Extreme Training
Extreme training ended up a lot less extreme than most of us predicted. We ended up being divided into two teams of pretty equally men and women. There was women's and then men's group mud wrestling, which my team won both times (Go Tigers! And, also, Denise and I managed to stay in until the end was called in the women's round.). Then there was rugby, which I sort of wandered off from. I bumped into another girl named Denise and we delighted in combing the Mud Flats, calling each other to come delight in little things.
A family of snails all gathered together. A hermit crab in a shell we'd thought looked particularly beautiful and surprised us by having a prior claim to the little treasure. The ways the mud smooshed and sunk you in one area with a laugh. Picking up a discarded can and a pair of shoes, to leave it better than we'd found it.
After rugby was the 5k and 10k race, which both of us had claimed we really had no longing to be part of. We parted at the bottom of the big stone steps before the Mud Flats. I went and took a shower, while the majority of the rest of our tour and the huge gathering of other people who'd shown up for the relay, prepared. I just back out of the extreme training uniform and back into my clothes, chose a spot on the stairs and read poetry, watching the grey and sure skyline of mud and sea and sky.
Our guide (coincidentally the same guide from my Temple Trip) passed me by maybe twenty minutes later, stopped with a laugh and said, "No running for you?" To which I laughed, smiled and said, "I thought I'd rather read poetry," wondering if that sounded like a feeble excuse for sitting out of events I had paid for before the half second as he answered back while he was walking off, "You look very peaceful."
My heart swelled in my chest, and I drew my knees to my chest looking at the storm laden steel grey-blue sky, against the mud and sea, too far, and yet so much closer than the last six months, hugging my Kindle and poetry to me. This was what I'd paid for, after all. To be peaceful. At peace, in my element, and relaxed, doing as my heart dictated. Tears clouded the edges of my eyes and I thanked the nameless, unendingly named sky before returning to the altar of water and words.
Candid from the rock steps, during poetry reading -- Hmm. My eyes are all storm colored this day!
After Extreme training ended, and my first poetry book of the weekend (perhaps, here it is best to mention I was reading from five books during this weekend? Three of which I finished, and a sixth I finished today. The Kindle is vastly accommodating my attention span and changing longings.) Then we all crawled back on the bus, post showers, and headed another hour across the coast to true Boryeong with it's beautiful Daecheon beach. We separated from into groups based on where our hotels were, which was when we ended up parting from Denise and company.
I didn't get pictures of the inside rooms, but here are some outside shots from my hotel on the beach.
Our tiny hotel for all of group D. We were assigned six people to our room, but it ended up being four only.
From right at the doorway at the front of my building. Note the sidewalk across the road --
-- This is the view from that sidewalk.
After settling in Alice and I decided it was time to get involved in main Mud Festival festivities. First we wandered around everywhere, got ourselves painted up in normal mud (a funny, unpictured scene of painting each other in mud with paint brushed and laughing the whole time) and wandered around it in it until it dried. Then we washed ourselves off in the sea. Before we decided to wander back through again, this time to get covered in colored mud --
Blue paint -- of course -- and suddenly the blue of my eyes is literally *popping*
After this we wandered areas, ended up buying souvenirs and what not, while talking about dinner until we got completely seduced by the revelation of the Mud Spa. Which, of course, there aren't pictures of. Mind you, I'd never been to a spa of bath house in Korea, so it was fun and I was amazed at how cheap -- at only 3,000 won (less than 1.50 USD). You get shoe lockers and stuff lockers and then Alice was all -- "And now you get naked" to which my mouth fell open and the only word that fell out was What?
And on her face I saw the amused looked I'd given dozens of newbie’s in my life, the it's-okay-really-you'll-like-it look, while all I could do was parrot the word again and my brain struggled to make any coherence of the thought OMG How did no one tell me Korean people have clothing optionally communal places sooner? I was raised on clothing optional across a decade of events. I miss clothing optional coed and singularly women. I miss my religious events and the free form of the body, just existing near me, people content in just their skin talking and relaxing and just living.
And then like one second later I was naked (thinking of September's line about nakedness) and giddy and wanting to be in the spa already.
There are no pictures of this part of the night, of course, you understand. But there was a mud bath, a sea bath, a hot bath, a cold bath, mud masking, and sauna, all in the deliciousness of my first layer, open and exposed. Somehow in just my skin I always feel so much more powerfully confident of myself. My clothing always feels like a strange shroud in the way between me and the wind and the water, even the pieces which are much beloved and petted. I felt so free there. In the water, talking to Alice and other women, laying on the floor in the sauna with my eyes closed praying to the sound of other women quietly breathing.
We totally made plans to visit the one near our house this coming Friday, too. (Squee!)
Dinner afterwards was fresh seafood -- raw fish, and clams, and squid. Delicious and perfect. We wandered the streets, tried a shaved ice dessert which Alice ended up loving far more than me. And found the bus stop for touring the next day, only to be at the beginning of the realization we probably wouldn't be going out of the city as tentatively planned. We caught a small portion of the Hip Hop concert and then wandered off toward bed in the heavy wind, that had been with us all day, and the light rain heralding the night-time storm.
I slept quickly if not easily. I'm not made for floor sleeping or snoring people, but you find it where you can. I managed through the night and the morning turning up many blessings. We opened the door to find the night, with its thundersome pour, had cleared out entirely leaving up a bright, brilliant blue sky and endless golden sun beating down on the beautiful beach. We showered and packed up, it taking another hour or so to figure out the packing up bits and pieces and when things needed to go on the bus and what not. Which right after we put everything down and made it halfway back to the elephants (a must do on our list!) we bumped into Denise, Vivalin, and Jinjoo on the way to the bus to drop things.
We waited at the elephants for them to come back to us.
Beautiful, awesome creature, I bow before your beauty and prosperity.
I could have stayed and pet them for another two hours.
We decided as a group to grab a good lunch and make it a beach day. Lunch was delightful, but all of us were dying to get down to the sun and sand and surf. As we discovered in the same few conversations we are both going on the AK Jeju trip together, and that she'd invited me to room with them. It sometime around here when I made the discovery of Denise being an eclectic pagan. It was the second time in twelve hours I'd felt the floor nearly come out from under me. I cannot recount the sutter-strup of my heart every time I heard another voice say in easy conversation commune, spell, new moon, altar, worship and on and on.
I see these words in writing here often, nye daily, but to hear it with my ears. To hear what was so often taken for granted, before I came and even after I'd been here, until hearing it. Until hearing it was like breathing air and tasting the sea. My heart cried with joy at each simple one. A treasure akin to shell, moments of sound to be taken and pulled inside, sweetly nourished for the breadth of sunshine filled gratitude, which lent itself to laughter and joy.
The beautiful, so sweet, Jinjoo.
Me, Denise, Alice -- Totally need to icon this one of me. *head tilts*
Yesmm?
Totally reading poetry on the sunny beach, too.
While everyone else was still in the lounge and leisure mood, Denise and I decided to wander back up to the main festival because I'd really been bitten by wanting to make poetry at the booth for it. Every time I passed it I kept wanting to get my hands into it. To try and see. And this is what setting free the artist in me did. I don't want to be a potter, but I'd love to come play for a little while. Let me pull the thread of creativity and creation into another fathom and draw out the shape of the world, my graciousness and unending gratitude, in a bowl.
The inside was a spiral and it was my offering bowl, but it needed 24 hours to dry and we had only two to leaving,
so it became my offering to the universe, as well. So long little piece of myself. There will be more of you one day.
We hung around after this on the beach, before there was group dessert escapades. Then we all traipsed back to the bus for three hours back to Seoul. The trip was pretty normal. We all swapped contact information. Oh! At the rest stop, I bought an unusual drink -- a coconut. I've had coconut in my drink before, and even mostly straight coconut milk. But never before had I paid someone to pick up a fresh coconut, drill a hole with a corkscrew, pull it out, put a straw in the hole and hand it over to me. Never stop being made of awesome newness Korea.
There is home now and in four days more vacation! Of which in seven I will be spending half a week with Denise! I'm a little endlessly excited about the whole Jeju, and Denise, things. It's cute, maybe. >.>
Picture Galleries Created & Updated
Traveling in Korea
Boryeong Mud Festival
Saturday morning started with getting up a little earlier the normal, rangling myself and my things before clambering down to Alice's door. We grabbed a taxi and hauled it across the city to where the tour buses were waiting for us. We settled into the bus and made friendly with our neighboring seat people (Denise, Vivalin, and Jinjoo), who would in time become people we got to know very well.
Alice & I, all aboard for the weekend adventure
The trip on the bus was long, and our stops seemed to take about twice as long as was planned each time, but it was fun. I ended up in a neat conversation with Denise over my Kindle, because she had the original version. Which then led to a discussion on the latest version, and she gave my inside scoop on the newest, coolest place on the internet for me -- ManyBooks.Net; a place which makes readily available for download almost all the books from Project Gutenberg.
Eventually we did make the first stop -- the mud flats, where all the mud is brought to the main festival from, for our extreme training course.
The Mudflats
Denise, Me, Alice -- prepped for Extreme Training
Extreme training ended up a lot less extreme than most of us predicted. We ended up being divided into two teams of pretty equally men and women. There was women's and then men's group mud wrestling, which my team won both times (Go Tigers! And, also, Denise and I managed to stay in until the end was called in the women's round.). Then there was rugby, which I sort of wandered off from. I bumped into another girl named Denise and we delighted in combing the Mud Flats, calling each other to come delight in little things.
A family of snails all gathered together. A hermit crab in a shell we'd thought looked particularly beautiful and surprised us by having a prior claim to the little treasure. The ways the mud smooshed and sunk you in one area with a laugh. Picking up a discarded can and a pair of shoes, to leave it better than we'd found it.
After rugby was the 5k and 10k race, which both of us had claimed we really had no longing to be part of. We parted at the bottom of the big stone steps before the Mud Flats. I went and took a shower, while the majority of the rest of our tour and the huge gathering of other people who'd shown up for the relay, prepared. I just back out of the extreme training uniform and back into my clothes, chose a spot on the stairs and read poetry, watching the grey and sure skyline of mud and sea and sky.
Our guide (coincidentally the same guide from my Temple Trip) passed me by maybe twenty minutes later, stopped with a laugh and said, "No running for you?" To which I laughed, smiled and said, "I thought I'd rather read poetry," wondering if that sounded like a feeble excuse for sitting out of events I had paid for before the half second as he answered back while he was walking off, "You look very peaceful."
My heart swelled in my chest, and I drew my knees to my chest looking at the storm laden steel grey-blue sky, against the mud and sea, too far, and yet so much closer than the last six months, hugging my Kindle and poetry to me. This was what I'd paid for, after all. To be peaceful. At peace, in my element, and relaxed, doing as my heart dictated. Tears clouded the edges of my eyes and I thanked the nameless, unendingly named sky before returning to the altar of water and words.
Candid from the rock steps, during poetry reading -- Hmm. My eyes are all storm colored this day!
After Extreme training ended, and my first poetry book of the weekend (perhaps, here it is best to mention I was reading from five books during this weekend? Three of which I finished, and a sixth I finished today. The Kindle is vastly accommodating my attention span and changing longings.) Then we all crawled back on the bus, post showers, and headed another hour across the coast to true Boryeong with it's beautiful Daecheon beach. We separated from into groups based on where our hotels were, which was when we ended up parting from Denise and company.
I didn't get pictures of the inside rooms, but here are some outside shots from my hotel on the beach.
Our tiny hotel for all of group D. We were assigned six people to our room, but it ended up being four only.
From right at the doorway at the front of my building. Note the sidewalk across the road --
-- This is the view from that sidewalk.
After settling in Alice and I decided it was time to get involved in main Mud Festival festivities. First we wandered around everywhere, got ourselves painted up in normal mud (a funny, unpictured scene of painting each other in mud with paint brushed and laughing the whole time) and wandered around it in it until it dried. Then we washed ourselves off in the sea. Before we decided to wander back through again, this time to get covered in colored mud --
Blue paint -- of course -- and suddenly the blue of my eyes is literally *popping*
After this we wandered areas, ended up buying souvenirs and what not, while talking about dinner until we got completely seduced by the revelation of the Mud Spa. Which, of course, there aren't pictures of. Mind you, I'd never been to a spa of bath house in Korea, so it was fun and I was amazed at how cheap -- at only 3,000 won (less than 1.50 USD). You get shoe lockers and stuff lockers and then Alice was all -- "And now you get naked" to which my mouth fell open and the only word that fell out was What?
And on her face I saw the amused looked I'd given dozens of newbie’s in my life, the it's-okay-really-you'll-like-it look, while all I could do was parrot the word again and my brain struggled to make any coherence of the thought OMG How did no one tell me Korean people have clothing optionally communal places sooner? I was raised on clothing optional across a decade of events. I miss clothing optional coed and singularly women. I miss my religious events and the free form of the body, just existing near me, people content in just their skin talking and relaxing and just living.
And then like one second later I was naked (thinking of September's line about nakedness) and giddy and wanting to be in the spa already.
There are no pictures of this part of the night, of course, you understand. But there was a mud bath, a sea bath, a hot bath, a cold bath, mud masking, and sauna, all in the deliciousness of my first layer, open and exposed. Somehow in just my skin I always feel so much more powerfully confident of myself. My clothing always feels like a strange shroud in the way between me and the wind and the water, even the pieces which are much beloved and petted. I felt so free there. In the water, talking to Alice and other women, laying on the floor in the sauna with my eyes closed praying to the sound of other women quietly breathing.
We totally made plans to visit the one near our house this coming Friday, too. (Squee!)
Dinner afterwards was fresh seafood -- raw fish, and clams, and squid. Delicious and perfect. We wandered the streets, tried a shaved ice dessert which Alice ended up loving far more than me. And found the bus stop for touring the next day, only to be at the beginning of the realization we probably wouldn't be going out of the city as tentatively planned. We caught a small portion of the Hip Hop concert and then wandered off toward bed in the heavy wind, that had been with us all day, and the light rain heralding the night-time storm.
I slept quickly if not easily. I'm not made for floor sleeping or snoring people, but you find it where you can. I managed through the night and the morning turning up many blessings. We opened the door to find the night, with its thundersome pour, had cleared out entirely leaving up a bright, brilliant blue sky and endless golden sun beating down on the beautiful beach. We showered and packed up, it taking another hour or so to figure out the packing up bits and pieces and when things needed to go on the bus and what not. Which right after we put everything down and made it halfway back to the elephants (a must do on our list!) we bumped into Denise, Vivalin, and Jinjoo on the way to the bus to drop things.
We waited at the elephants for them to come back to us.
Beautiful, awesome creature, I bow before your beauty and prosperity.
I could have stayed and pet them for another two hours.
We decided as a group to grab a good lunch and make it a beach day. Lunch was delightful, but all of us were dying to get down to the sun and sand and surf. As we discovered in the same few conversations we are both going on the AK Jeju trip together, and that she'd invited me to room with them. It sometime around here when I made the discovery of Denise being an eclectic pagan. It was the second time in twelve hours I'd felt the floor nearly come out from under me. I cannot recount the sutter-strup of my heart every time I heard another voice say in easy conversation commune, spell, new moon, altar, worship and on and on.
I see these words in writing here often, nye daily, but to hear it with my ears. To hear what was so often taken for granted, before I came and even after I'd been here, until hearing it. Until hearing it was like breathing air and tasting the sea. My heart cried with joy at each simple one. A treasure akin to shell, moments of sound to be taken and pulled inside, sweetly nourished for the breadth of sunshine filled gratitude, which lent itself to laughter and joy.
The beautiful, so sweet, Jinjoo.
Me, Denise, Alice -- Totally need to icon this one of me. *head tilts*
Yesmm?
Totally reading poetry on the sunny beach, too.
While everyone else was still in the lounge and leisure mood, Denise and I decided to wander back up to the main festival because I'd really been bitten by wanting to make poetry at the booth for it. Every time I passed it I kept wanting to get my hands into it. To try and see. And this is what setting free the artist in me did. I don't want to be a potter, but I'd love to come play for a little while. Let me pull the thread of creativity and creation into another fathom and draw out the shape of the world, my graciousness and unending gratitude, in a bowl.
The inside was a spiral and it was my offering bowl, but it needed 24 hours to dry and we had only two to leaving,
so it became my offering to the universe, as well. So long little piece of myself. There will be more of you one day.
We hung around after this on the beach, before there was group dessert escapades. Then we all traipsed back to the bus for three hours back to Seoul. The trip was pretty normal. We all swapped contact information. Oh! At the rest stop, I bought an unusual drink -- a coconut. I've had coconut in my drink before, and even mostly straight coconut milk. But never before had I paid someone to pick up a fresh coconut, drill a hole with a corkscrew, pull it out, put a straw in the hole and hand it over to me. Never stop being made of awesome newness Korea.
There is home now and in four days more vacation! Of which in seven I will be spending half a week with Denise! I'm a little endlessly excited about the whole Jeju, and Denise, things. It's cute, maybe. >.>
Picture Galleries Created & Updated
Traveling in Korea
Boryeong Mud Festival