Mud Festival And Bringing Things Up-To-Date

Not posted for a while, been so busy. Now I'm playing catch-up. So just to bring things up-to-date, as far as just before we went on our vacation, well here I go.

Erm..! Oh yeah, the Deacheon Mud Festival! That's the main thing we've done. Well Jorge, Ben, Dorothy, Sam and myself set off early (very early) on the Saturday morning. We caught the train down to Deacheon, a two and a half hour journey. We couldn't get seats, so we and many others had to find somewhere to plonk ourselves. Near the toilets seemed a pretty good place.

Eventually we landed at the station and grabbed a taxi over to the beach. Kristin had pre-booked a room for us all, but unfortunately couldn't come. She'd started being sick the night before, so had to cry off. We dumped our bags in the room, got changed and hit the beach. Jorge went straight into the sea and started swimming out. Within five minutes the coast guard was there in their speed boat and ordering him back towards the beach. Turns out the swimming zone on Korean beaches is tiny, I mean tiny. You can swim out maybe 40-50 metres before you get stopped.

After that we did what we came to do and went to get down and dirty. There are stalls set-up all over the beach where they have buckets of mud and brushes. You simply cover yourself, everyone does. All you see at the Mud Festival is people in various states of mud cover. From head-to-toe, to just their face, arms or splodges in any number of places.

Well it was only just hitting early afternoon, but we started to relax into the festival atmosphere and as such cracked or first can of beer. The rest of the afternoon carried on in the same vain, drinking beer and taking in the fun of it all. There was lots to do and see, including mud wrestling, giant slide, and any number of big inflatables for people to jump, climb and bounce all over.

Ian had a meeting back at home, so arrived later in the day. The night went on like the day, wandering around the beach, meeting the weird and wonderful people hanging out near the beach. We ended the night, or at least most of us did, in the very early hours drinking back at our motel. They were giving away free beer!

Next day, Ben had to leave early as he needed to go to Seoul that day to meet John and Jo. Jorge also left early, leaving Dorothy, Ian, Sam and myself to enjoy the sun of day two. Same as the day before, but with almost no beer drinking. We'd had our fill the day before. Dorothy, Ian and myself hired quad bikes, and bombed around for a while. Sam laid out on the beach, not feeling sober enough from the night before to feel safe on a bike.

The rest of the day was spent hanging on the beach, enjoying the sun. We decided to get a later train back, as it was so lovely just chilling. The train was the same thing again, no seats, and so finding a corner somewhere to call your own.

The next week, before our vacation week was an odd one. The kids are off on holiday so many of them hang-out at school. Mr. Oh isn't around much, doing whatever secret business dealings he's up to. Some new kids have started, so we have to think of new names for them. Which is getting harder and harder all the time. I spent almost a full lesson, finding a name for one girl. She just didn't like most of the 100+ I'd thought of. Lisa, is what we ended up with.

Apart from that I can't remember much, so there can't been anything notable happened. Apart from on the Monday before we went away, we didn't have to teach kindergarten. We still had our usual Monday morning meeting, so all the staff were there. Mr. Oh took us all out for lunch, which was something we've never done before. It was good, and made a nice change. We just worked that Monday, and that was it, vacation time started. Hurrah!