HERE WE GO!!!
Mudfest
The most epic weekend of weekends. Let me start off by saying just how up to expectations this festival really was. Envision a festival in which hundreds and thousands of people are just covered in mud having a great time, living by one rule… dirty up any clean strangers you see, regardless of time, weather, age, and or sex. It was quite literally, in all senses of the name, a FESTIVAL of MUD!!!
But I digress for now; let me recount the pre-mudfest weekend which was just as exciting and hopefully as much fun for you to read as it is for me to revisit.
Friday after work Mrs. Kolath took us to an all you can eat buffet. An all you can eat KOREAN buffet. Boy oh boy, everything you could ask for and then some. It turned out to be the hotspot for all the taxi drivers in Daegu. A huge table piled high with every type of Korean goodie you could imagine. My favorite would have to be the pork cutlet, cut thin and served in wedges! We had it all. Oh, and a side note; the Korean sushi we always rave about is called “kimbap” I think. It’s was equally delicious and covered a significant portion of my plate. The guest list included all of us camp A’ers, Mrs. Kolath, Ms. Liz, and a family from the center with connections to the other staffers. It was a feast of feasts, until it began to wind down and the lady in charge came over impressed, but a little aggravated, speaking lighting to us, which scared us a little, but was resolved into a misuderstanding about our plates, and an extra charge for leaving them unclean (extra food). my plate was of course spotless, (I’m not here to mess around when it comes to food☺). mrs. Kolath was hilarious, piling food into the teacups and under the table into the trash cans… we eventually stopped her and piled everything onto one plate, making a mountain of leftovers, which we actually got out of due to a hair found in the food… I actually helped bat clean up on some of the items that wouldn’t fit onto our mountain o’ slop, and a few of us ate some of the “duk” (I think), which was a chewier mochi type dessert (I believe), which actually made Trevor gag to the point we thought he was going to vomit… a great way to cap off a great meal, no? anyway, after the feast, we, and our recently conceived “food babies” strolled out of the restaurant and decided to walk our way home, hopefully easing the burdens of our recent endevour.
On the way back, and with Liz as our tour guide, we found our way to a Buddhist temple where we stopped to explore and pay our respects. It is amazing, the efforts and attention to detail that go into both the exterior and more importantly the interiors of the buildings in Korea. This temple in particular was divided into different floors all obviously connected, but each different and used for unique individual reasons. The top floor was my favorite, with thousands of fist sized golden Buddha’s, each honoring a monk who had done something outstanding in his life. I sat in this room, with another lady devout in prayer, and took a moment to absorb it all. It was something else… I hate to move on from this story with something so much less profound… but after the temple, it was a short jaunt home, a stop for some street doughnuts (3 for a 1000 won- 80cents) and a bit of snack shopping and then back on base, packing for the weekend to come!
Saturday brought about an early morning, a long bus ride, and a new discovery. The new discovery came in the form of food as they usually do, this time as an ice cream! I tell you, bus stops up here get the job done! It was a waffle type ice cream with red bean filling, something out of this world!!! It may have possibly topped the ice cream in a bag… maybe.
Then finally, we made it to mudfest! First impressions:
Sea-side town
Ocean
Mud pit
Crazy amounts of people… most of whom are clearly well lubricated (alcohol -wise)
Can’t hear/talk to someone a foot away from you
Everyone touching/packed/crowded
AWESOME
The festival encompassed the whole ocean side of the city. but to actually get to the beach, you had to descend steep wide stairs, past the giant stage and happy visitors, all the while (in my case) unsuccessfully trying to stay clean. Within the first 45 seconds of reaching the crowds I already had my first muddy hand-print on my otherwise pristine body ☺ I couldn’t have been happier hahaha. There were mud stations down on the beach where people were just going crazy painting themselves, their friends, complete stangers, it was a free-for-all bonanza of muddy insanity. We enjoyed ourselves to say the least!
As the day progressed so did the stories. Emboldend by a little liquid courage, I took my muddy, bespeckled (not from the mud as much as the Lcourage) into THE MUD PIT!!! To paint a picture of this “pit”, imagine a larger than normal kiddie pool, better built, and full of craziness. This pit was full of tourists, locals, drunken people, sober people, huge people, small people, you name it! And we rushed it! Upon jumping into the pit, because such an occasion calls for jumping entrances, you fight your way to stable yourself amongst the crowds and mud… did I mention that there was mud in this pit??? As if the mud wasn’t enough, people not on the floor of the pits are the targets of all by some undeclared, unspoken, unwritten, and at the time, complete unknown rules of the mudpit. Tackling, sweeping the leg, tripping, wrapping, anything goes in this pit. The key is, once you’re down, stay down unless you’re up for the challenge… which we were as we acclimated to our new surroundings and attempted to race from end to end (on our feet)- hilarity ensued! There was mud in my mouth, in my eyes, ears, teeth, suit; there were high fives, take downs, new friends, no hard feelings, and an occasional (hopefully accidental) toe in the butt… yups, it really did happen. A seriously dangerous amount of fun. But with that much fun it was impossible that we didn’t leave without any battle wounds. Please enjoy the picture of my encounter with “wolverine”. I’m not exactly sure how I got this… as far as I can recall, I remember being scratched down the back and thinking it was some rough sand or small dirt particles that got caught between myself (my back) and whoever it was sliding down the other side.
Hrrmmmmm, another unsolved mysteries. Anyway, to this day the badge of honor lingers on! Jenneca, was less lucky. She, after taking on some 300lb brutes, wound up being sat on (of all the crazy/ and unbelievable ways she could’ve possibly been hurt), not even kidding, she was full on wrestling with them, being picked up in the air, and laughing the whole time… until she was sat on, resulting in a torn ligiment (initial diagnosis)/ really bad sprain. Needless to say, she had to end her professional wrestling career there and then. Plus, with the prescribed medication from the first aid tent, she couldn’t even lubricate herself to a more tolerable degree of comfort. Thank goodness our hotel was only about a 3 minute (unassisted) walk away from the beach. It took us a good 10 to 15 fighting our way through the crowds, carrying/spotting jenneca the whole time. At one point I think she caught a piggy back ride from matt, and “camper arm throned”, (you know where you make a square out two people’s arms, and have the third person hold your shoulders for support), it back for a couple minutes.The weather turned a little nasty as the weekend progressed, probably to reflect the misfortune of our group. But the whole experience was a rainy, cold, dirty, unforgettable awesome day.
The night brought with it a craving for some seafood- which sorry to say resulted in disappointment, sea snails, and clams, and such just didn’t leave me too satisfied. There was a fight/ incident with this guy clearly on something, our in the street. He sadly provided the entertainment (in a very depressing/intriguing kind of way) to go with our meal. It was getting scary; this guy kept latching onto people, clearly out of his mind, was knocked down a few times, bleeding, at one point we think he had a seizure, and would stop at nothing, scaring little children, grabbing some guys dreads, force kissing this other dude. It was a “no go” situation, and he was thankfully picked up to the obvious displeasure of the Korean medical workers.
The night did however bring about the first ever bulgogi burger experience- which I will give a hearty thumbs up to! Thank you “Lotteria”!!! We walked around a bit more, not wanting to return home right away, but got caught up in the rain, and ended up retiering early anyway. Hahaha, we got back just in time to miss the firework show, and had to settle for a windowside view. Plus, apparently we missed “girls generation” playing a couple songs- which was huge, because the girls group is currently sweeping korea!!! I was a little disappointed to say the least. However, as we settled into our deluxe rooms, which consisted of a bed, and a bathroom… we made our own fun, coming up with an extravagant tail of betrayal, prosititution, and family blood rights to accompany the Korean soap opera playing without subtitles in our rooms.
Sunday- or as I call it, Monsoon Sunday, brought about dreary weather, and a few hours to linger around, picking up some free goodies, and snapping pictures of the signs and events without the crowds,
and one very jubilant streaker (to the amusement and dismay of the local police). As in all good/memorable trips, we befriended a stranger, one of the staff who ended up scoring us some “volunteer” visors (I was actually looking for the ones that said interpreter/translator), but this guy was awesome, actually coming from jersey back in the states, Sam was up at mudfest visiting home and volunteering for the summer. We also met one of the other staffers, an interpreter (yes wearing the desired visor) who helped us navigate some of our purchases and ended up helping us take a picture with two Korean ladies who gave us free bags of rice and some of the best little cherry tomatoes. I feel the need to reiterate my love of elderly Korean ladies, they are so sweet! Mudfest gets some big kudos from me! if you ever get the chance, it is a definite YES thing to do as far as I’m concerned! If there is ever a situation where an employee/ staffer gets picked up and placed in a trash can of mud that he is using to spray a mud prison down with, and comes out smiling, you know you’re in the right place!
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