Mud Festival

The Mud Festival is one of the main summer events in Korea during the week of July 16th-24th. Some of us signed up through Adventure Korea, a travel company that has great personnel. They were one of the few companies that were allowed some access to the mud flats. Many parts of the mud flats are reserved solely for the use in the festival. They want to keep the mud as pure as possible. The site of the festival is actually about 25 kilometers from the mudflats. The mud is brought from the mud flats to the festival. I didn't realize how many foreigners lived in Korea until I arrived at this festival. I almost forgot that I was even in Korea during this time. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my new camera because of the mud, but I did collect some pictures from friends! Maybe I should get a disposable camera if I get to attend the festival next year.

 The first event at the mud flats was chicken fighting. You fall to the ground, it's game over.

 Playing soccer in the mud was pretty fun. I did a wicked slide tackle to block a shot attempt that extended about 5 feet over. Too bad no one else captured a picture.

 Here's a quick group picture before we continued with the next events.

Mud wresting was pretty entertaining to watch. This was right after one of the guys was thrown into the inner tube pile driver style and bounced right out of the ring.

 I think it's easy to figure out which one of us did not participate in mud wrestling...

 The entrance into the festival. Notice that it even says "mud" in English - now that's what I call being foreign friendly!

 I have to give props to the people who used the mud as part of their costumes, since they were dressed like this for the whole day!

 This picture gives somewhat of an idea of how crowded it was at the festival. Since the beach is just right there, we could easily wash all of the mud off in the ocean!

Look at all of this mud!