a mud fest, a back injury and a night of clubbing

a random collection of events, indeed. But all since the last guapa in korea update, so I figured I’d just throw them all in together.

So, the mud fest. To be precise, the Boryeong Mud Festival which, if you peruse the wonderfully translated website, you will be thoroughly confused about what is *actually* going on at this event. Before we took off at the ungodly hour of 5 am last Saturday (went with some teachers from school – Jim stayed behind for the weekend), I had very little idea of what to expect at said mud festival. There were rumors of naked mud wrestling and orgies of sorts. Tales of drunken, muddy yahoo foreigners guzzling beer and ogling the ladies. Military boys on weekend leave. Would it be like burning man on the beach? Would it be like freshman year at Who’s on First, but with beer *and* mud?? Oh, the mystery…

I don’t think I even realized it was on the beach until we arrived. After a lovely early morning train ride and a cramped, slightly annoying bus ride, we arrived at Daecheon Beach at about 9:30 am. Already buzzing with people, the beach was a long stretch of lovely white sand. There was a long “boardwalk” of sorts that started out kind of old and rickety and progressed to a newer, shinier version of itself several kilometers down the beach.

We found our little hotel room not too far from the beach, slapped on the sunscreen and headed to check out the mud. It was a gorgeous day—the first cloudless, blue sky we’d seen in weeks as Gwangju has generally been overcast and humid as all get out for the past month. Spent a few hours chillin on the beach and in the warm water—the tide was out (still can’t quite figure this one out since I’m new to this side of the world), WAY out, so there was plenty of beach. But suddenly, at around 2 or so, the tide started coming in so fast that over 80% of the beach was gone within 20 minutes. People who had gotten up to go get another beer or go to the bathroom, came back to find their towels and books and whatever else swept out into the water. We got out with plenty of time.

Finally got ourselves over to the mud. Here was the set up: “tables”—small little plastic tables with umbrellas that had little tubs of mud on them that you could douse yourself in. even had some paintbrushes to get an even look to your muddy body; a mud slide (that was fully *not* working at all; a giant pool of mud that was also closed for some unknown reason; mud wrestling, which was open and was quite hilarious; mud jail – still very unclear what you do in “mud jail” but it was there, complete with rubber bars on the walls. All of it was quite peculiar, but definitely a much more controlled mud experience than we had been led to believe. There were no naked people. There were no orgies. Just tons and tons of people throwing buckets of mud on each others head and dancing around. Truly a wonderful feeling – getting all soaked in mud, letting it dry and then jumping in the sea to wash it all off. Fabulous. Great for the skin they say.

Managed to dance a jig or two with these old Korean ladies who were *way* in to the mud experience. Here’s a shot of me with the grannies. Hilarious I tell you. Truly hilarious.
Met a pile of great folks who live in Gwangju. Lots of Aussies. A few Brits. Learned a very silly schoolyard taunt from Will the Aussie, complete with hand gestures: Whatever, Your Mom Works Part Time at Maccas. Maccas (Ma-kahs) is, of course, McDonald’s in Australia. Without the hand gestures, you really can’t do this one justice. But the best part was that he had another version, which involved telling your foe that his or her mom works part time at Westy’s (or something like that). When I was like, hah hah, what’s Westy’s? Will said, “ oh, it’s this really bad bank in Australia.” Bank? You mom works at a really bad bank? That’s the insult? Those crazy Aussies.

Met some great folks who live in Seoul the next morning – they were doing some yoga on the beach, so I thought I’d chat them up for a while. Fantastic conversation, all about what it’s been like to move to this country and all the emotions and challenges that have come up for us, how we face them, how we find space to allow them to even exist, etc. It was great to share that stuff with a perfect stranger – to connect on a deep level about the fact that this move, this life, truly magnifies our emotional and psychological experience and presents us with a mirror of ourselves that cannot be ignored or evaded through our normal coping mechanisms. A wonderful chat on the beach topped off a lovely weekend.

One of the best things I saw out there was, totally by chance, running into a pack of 4 bikers resting their tricked out low rider harley's on the street as we were leaving town. The bikes were beautiful. Here's a pic of me on one of them. Do check out Flickr for more. The details were unreal.

Back to the school grind this past week. Day off for a holiday and another day for tests for the kids, so it was an easy week, or so it would have been had I not thrown out my back early on Wednesday morning. Right. So, I finally find a line on garbanzo beans. I’d been soaking them so I could actually make hummus which I was totally psyched about. So, I bend down to open the fridge and suddenly, something slips in my back. Woohoo! Thus ensued four days of intense back pain. I think it’s finally in its healing stage after a couple of trips to the acupuncturist Jim and I have been seeing. And just in time, too, for a night out to a Gwangju Club for the last weekend of a fellow teacher and the last weekend I will be 30. I turn 31 next Friday. Very hard to believe.

The club was pretty ridiculous. Tons of people. DJs spinning great hip hop for the most part. The largest disco ball ever floating in the middle of the room and free electric red devil horns being given out at the bar. I was agile enough to get my groove on for a while. Got lots of great photos, so check out the Flickr site this week when you get the chance.
Getting geared up for our vacation at the end of this week. The day after my birthday on the 28th, we’ll head to Seoul and then to Seorak-san to do some backpacking for a few days and then lay on the beach for a few more. I’m looking forward to the time off and away from the city.

Stayed tuned for an upcoming post of the ridiculous t-shirts that Jim and I purchased this week. I love them. They rock.

Much love

Guapa in korea