Boryeong Mud Festival Part 2

After assembling in the bedless, open hotel room, we six wandered out onto the boardwalk and toward the festival area. Up ahead, a fellow foreigner removed his his backward ball cap, opened the lid of a fish tank outside of one of the many streetside restaurants and plunged his head quickly into the water. We passed the tank and noticed that it was occupied by four, three-foot long sharks. For the remainder of the trip, Sami was convinced I would attempt to duplicate this act of retardedness. I had zero intention of doing so, but fully recognized the bargaining chip sent before me.

Joe: I want another beer.

Sami: I don't think so, you've had enough already and we shouldn't spend the money.

Joe: If I don't get a beer I am going to put my head in the shark tank.

Sami: Fine. Here. (Hands over cash)

And later...

Sami: Let's go dance onstage with the rest of the party.

Joe: No. Dancing is gay.

Sami: Please? It will be fun.

Joe: Fine, I will go only if I can chum the shark water with my face first. Just one time. Real quick.

Sami: Forget it. Nevermind.

Back on the boardwalk, the gray sky and light drizzle did not deter the substantial foreign population from freely exposing their pale and freshly mudcaked bodies to both the elements and frightened locals. Men in a variety of shapes, sizes and body hair volumes pranced around in the skimpiest of speedos. Girls soft and doughy from excessive binge drinking sported half hidden bikinis and oversized sunglasses. Someone wore a rubber horse mask and purposefully scared small children. All clutched brown, plastic, 32 ounce beer bottles and periodically lifted the heavy receptacle to their lips with an awkward head tilt. After a gluttonous slug, a backhanded wipe of lip fizz and a low, warm, stinky belch through the nose, the unparched festival goer would inevitably raise one fist into the air and scream "Woooo! Mud-Pest-Uh!" in a mock appreciation of Konglish.

We were going to share a few orders of fried chicken, but there was none left. We went to another tent and I ordered some of my favorite black bean noodles, but they were out. I ended up getting a hamburger which was very good, the best I've had in Korea, but still not the same. Maybe it was the fresh cucumber instead of dill pickle. I love pickle on hamburgers. There was a liberal amount of creamy delicious mayonnaise which I gargled like mouthwash it was so good.

The festival area housed a myriad of concrete sea sculptures and water slides. A corridor of booths where you could get painted in a special mud lined the main walkway. We all were debating about whether or not to wait in line to get painted when Tor suddenly jumped into a kiddie pool of mud wrestlers. Soon everyone in our party was stripping down and handing me their clothes and cameras to protect from the mud. None of them had participated in the Mud Olympics on the beach as I had, so maybe they thought I had had my fill. Undeterred, I set the items down and slowly approached the pool. I gingerly stepped in and laid face up in the pool. The bewildered participants, momentarily paused during a brief intermission, frantically began to kick mud onto my virgin skin and into my open mouth. I exited as muddy as the rest of the crew.

We rinsed ourselves off in the ocean and played in the waves. There were large typhoon swells in the normally calm waters of the Boryeong beach and we worked hard riding the biggest waves onto the shore, turning and running against the tide to catch a bigger one.

Eventually we walked back down the crazy boardwalk to our shared room to get ready for dinner. Along the way I spotted the now familiar shark tank and sprinted for it. Through the blur of tacky tourists and drunk Koreans I could hear my wife shriekingly admonish my mock retardedness.