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It is a holiday town situated on the beach and a whole bunch of activities and events are held along the beach and just off the sand. The beach ends up looking a little bit like Full Moon Festival in Thailand - a massive strip of sand covered in garbage, thousands of drunken lunatics and leading to an ocean that cannot possibly have clean water. I would have to guess that around 5 to 6 thousand people were in attendance; most being expat teachers, a few young families enjoying the beach (why oh why would you bring your children anywhere near this drunken and debaucherous mass of humanity), and quite a few US army guys. Theres no bigger meatheads on Earth than these dudes. Everyone will be having fun until these guys come within a 20 metre radius and immediately kill everyones buzz. Don't even think about talking to a girl if these guys can see you, their unnatural amounts of testosterone will have have a massive issue with it. In fact, don't even bother looking at them, because thats means you are challenging their alpha dog status and something will need to be done. Other than this unpleasentness it was an amazing weekend that went as follows;
- Met at 9 pm in Jinju to catch the bus in Monsoonal conditions. We didnt have to actually go to mudfest at this point because we were already at a mudfest. Absolutely soaked to the bone before I got on the bus. Things heated up rather quickly though as I was revealed we were on a "Noraebus" - literally "Singing Bus" - and after a few beverages to loosen everyone up, we had that thing rocking. I went 3rd with Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer". I sing, especially the verses, in a very very Aussie accent, which even I can hear through the speakers. So my first 30 seconds drew rapturous laughter from everyone as I was waiting for the chorus. Once I could breakout and actually sing things got better, and my dancing and acting provides a good distraction to my voice as well. Once I was done I got a few "Peter Garrett" jokes. Good stuff. After a few more songs me and the Aussie girl gave our rendition of "Land Down Under" which was accompanied by my faux flute playing (or whatever instrument is used in that song). After this I was established as the star of the Noraebus. At one of the many breaks we took on the way, someone foolishly suggested a foot race while we waited for everyone. Bad choice by them. Kicked their ARSE! The rest of the trip was punctuated by more singing, drinking and increased dancing in the aisles. There is no way in hell this would be allowed in Australia - it was loud, dangerous, drunken and crazy in that bus. Heck, in Australia you are supposed to weat seatbelts in the bus! By the time we had arrived I was already satisfied with my weekend, as I had just had the most enjoyable bus trip of my life, and I didnt think it could really get any better. The only downside about the bus ride was none of the stops along the way served alcohol. I actually think it would have been safer if the bus driver drove when pissed and on drugs then drive with us hooting and holering in the aisles.
-The flute section of "Land Down Under"
- And the crowd is loving it!!- Once we got the Boryeong - at 1.00 - we dropped our stuff into our "Pension" - our hotel. We had about 40 people staying in 5 rooms. Floorspace only. Made for sore necks in the morning. Apparently 80 people have stayed in that pension before - they must have fit 20 in the bathrooms for that too work. After dropping our stuff off we went down to the beach. I wasnt prepared was swimming when everyone started running into the water, but I was drunk and wanted to swim, so off with the jean shorts and into the water in my undies it was. Believe me, after seeing what some people still wear to the beach these days, wearing underpants (and the long boxer brief style ones) was more then acceptable. I thought only 50 year old men wear budgie smugglers anymore. Obviously not. Anyway I frolicked around my undies for an hour on the beach at 2 in the morning. There will be no photos of this. Wait, why am I telling you this???
- The next day we went to the actual mudfest which was actually quite fun. It was basically a collection of "rides" or "games" that were played in/on blow up things. Like a jumping castle. But instead of a jumping castle there was the bungy - where you strapped yourself into your bungy across from someone, then you both ran to the centre until you bungy became too tight and flings you back to where u came - the climb - where you "rock climbed" (but not as steep) to the top of a mountain and then threw your self down the slide at the end - the race - which was an obstacle course where you raced 4 friends at a time - and the pits - where you basically just wrestled people in the mud. This was the tailor made for the army wanks to flex their muscles (literally), beat up on unsuspecting "weaklings" and show how much they love themselves. If you managed to be in there when they werent, it was actually alot of fun. There was also artistic mud which came in cool colours that would stick on you and you could make cool designs, a stage area where there was a bit of live music, and an impromptu mud fight. This was actually quite funny because this was not a designated area for mudfighting. It was supposed to be a "mud sculptor" area, but no one who went there could actually remember seeing any mud sculptures. This is because they were being used as shields and ammunition and no one had time to look around and admire them. There was two teams about 10/15 metres from each other just hurling balls of mud at each other. One team was using the sculptures as protection and the other was using cars as protection. This was definately not supposed to be happening. It was a fair way away from most of the action - near the car park in fact - and this is the reason why cars were being absolutely bombed. It would have sucked being the owner of one of the cars because they were completely brown by the time it was broken up. I dont know how long it lasted for but if was fun while it lasted and made better by the fact that it was completley organic. I think someone must have just shouted out "MUDFIGHT!!!!" and everyone followed through.
- Part of our crew; the flag is the Jinju flag
- Our impromptu "Soju Bucket". Yes, its a rice machine.- I was completely worn out by about 5 or 6 in the arvo thanks to little sleep and a massive day so I passed out when i got back to the hotel. I was back up a few hours later and we enjoyed the night life, however by this point i was running on fumes and pretty happy with my weekend already. There was a concert held during the early part of the night which featured typical Korean entertainment - 60 year old guys singing karaoke style, teeny bopping young Korean girl singing, and a DJ. All in all, totally cheezey and hard to listen to or enjoy, but 100% authentic Korean. After this most went to a club but I decided I didnt want to be death stared by a bunch of army kooks and just drank on the beach. Ended up being an earlyish night.
- Received some sun on the last day as we sat on the beach waiting for our bus to leave. As it turns out, it was good that it wasnt sunny on the saturday otherwise id still be burnt. The clouds turned out to be a blessing. I mean, we were wet in mud all day, getting rained on isnt really an issue is it? I took my first photos of the weekend, the noraebus notwithstanding (where I took 200), but didnt really capture what mudfest was about. But I did get some damn fine shots of everyone singing. On the bus home there was more singing too top off probably the biggest weekend since ive been here.
Looking up and down the beach; doesnt really give a good idea how big the event was and how many people were there. It was sunday morning so im sure many were still sleeping. Most of the action was in the direction of the second photo, but it is just out of view.
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