Hash, Logos, and Mud

This weekend, Christina, Leslie and I went to the Beonyeong Mud festival near Daecheon. It was amazing and one of those experiences that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. The place was gorgeous. It's a small city on the western coast of Korea, south of Seoul. The whole city is right on the beach and the sand is amazingly soft and white. It was a blast to go swimming in the ocean - just letting the waves lift and drop you is fun. We tried to body surf, but the waves were too small. It took us all about 4 hours to get there by bus and train. Transportation here is amazingly cheap. To get to a destination 4 hours away, it only cost us about 9 Canadian dollars!
 
Anyway, the mud festival is a yearly festival in which the locals and foreigners play in the mud for 7 days. There are scheduled events each day and the days we were there, we got to take in a fireworks display, a parade, and a load of partying. We stayed Saturday night and left the next day at 4pm or so.
 
The main attraction of the festival is the "healthy" mud that people cover themselves in (one thing that the foreigners joke about is that everything in Korea is "good for health!" - for instance, "pollution? Ah, good for health! Yes! Very Korean!"). Whether or not the mud really is healthy or not is debatable. Either way, it was loads of fun and I will be uploading some pictures of the event very soon!
 
On Saturday, we got covered from head to toe in mud. I swear to god that we were the muddiest of all the foreigners there. It was cool - we were like superstars because everyone was looking at us funny and taking pictures. I think it was the spike. Kudos to Dawn Lahti for that one. Saturday night we drank and enjoyed the fireworks display, then hung out on the beach until the tide came in. There were hoards of foreigners on the beach - roman candles were going off ALL night, and there were people with drums and guitars and it was fabulous. We finally got to bed at about 4-5am when the sun started to come up. We stayed in a very Korean "hotel" - a single room about 3 meters by 3 meters, with no furnishings WHATSOEVER. We slept on the linoleum floor.
 
Today, I went to Olympic Park on a field trip with the students. It was lots of fun, although we spent too much time there and got home about an hour later than when the students were supposed to end school. We had angry moms. Anyway, there was a movie-ride we went on and we ate lunch with the students. I tasted a new food from the students. It was delicious. I forget the name of it, but it is translated as rock-rice (a ball of rice filled with cham'che [tuna] that looks like a rock because it is covered in sesame seeds and seasoned with green spices...).
 
A funny thing that I experienced on the way home: a big truck had "Oil-Free Air! 100%!" written on the side of it. Funny stuff. Usually, I prefer to breathe air that is oil-free...100% oil-free, to be more specific. Another funny one was a t-shirt we saw this weekend at the mud festival that said "I like to do a lot of thing".
 
I need to head off to "hash" tonight - something foreigners like to do here - running a set course and drinking while doing so. It should be fun. I'm being introduced tonight. I have to go get ready, so I'll write more later! Also, stay tuned for the pictures!