I Once Knew a Girl Whose Name Was Mud

Well, Mudd actually, Lauren Mudd to be exact. I wonder what she's up to these days. Anyhow, I spent yesterday with Dylan Thomas at the annual Boryeong Mud Festival. Here we are enjoying the sun and the mud.


The festival takes place in a town called Daechon which is located on Korea's west coast. The mud there is like totally super packed with minerals and meant to be better for you than the mud from the Dead Sea (personally, I found it disappointingly thinner than said Dead Sea mud, and it made my skin dry, but whatevs). At the festival, you can have all sorts of muddy adventures, such as covering yourself in mud (see above), sliding down mud slides, going through a mud-covered obstacle course (shaped like a dragon, no less), wrestling in a pool of muddy water (DT enjoyed this one quite a bit), and going into a jail-like enclosure, where people fling mud at you. There is a mud spa thingy and all sorts of mud beauty products for sale. You can also make mud soaps and mud pottery.

We rolled into town at about 10pm Monday night and found lodging thanks to a fellow at the bus terminal who just happened to be from Ilsan (Where DT lives). In Korea, you can be friends with someone once you find something in common, so we were immediately off on the right foot. After the motel folks were kind enough to build a bed for us (no, really), we headed out to check out the festivities. It quickly became evident that all of the muddiness took place in the day time, but we still managed to run into some friends from English Village, who were in the midst of seeking justice after having been refused entrance to a dance club because they were foreigners. We chatted with them, got the lay of the land and headed back for the night.

On Tuesday we were able to explore some of the aforementioned activities while enjoying beer and sunshine. We had a forced, impromptu photo shoot with a festival PR photographer ("Okay, pose, now running, running. Good!") The people-watching was fantastic. We also took a look around town, playing some games at an arcade and buying snacks, all while covered in mud. We took a swim in the lovely Yellow Sea (which, by the way, is not yellow--who knew?) and, after discovering that I had lost my fabulously awesome watch :( :( :( , we decided it was time to head back to our necks of the woods. We really had no idea where to go, but ended up at an acceptable bus terminal with relatively little difficulty and were relieved to find that we had not missed the last bus back to Ilsan. Tired, and still slightly crud-covered, we slept most of the bus ride back. I'm definitely glad to have checked out such a fun event. It had been quite a number of years since I'd said, "screw getting dirty," and just played in the mud.

And the Good Days Go By...

Tonight I went to see some traditional Korean music and dancing. It was at a theatre near Seoul City Hall. The whole show was pretty much geared toward tourists, but since I'd not seen any traditional Korean performance of any kind, it was interesting for me. The show featured seven different kinds of performance. My favorite had to be Gayageum Sanjo. This involved a row of about 8 women. Each woman was surrounded by 5 drums, two on each side (the other sides of which she shared with the women on either side of her) and one behind her. The women wore beautiful costumes and drummed in unison. The drumming patterns caused the women's movements to be incredibly dance-like, making the performance both visually stimulating and percussively awesome. My second favorite was Pangut and Sogochum, men dancing and playing instruments with long streamers on their hats. They moved their heads as they danced and played, in order to make nifty shapes and patterns with the streamers (think rhythmic gymnastics, only exponentially more whimsical and enjoyable). Good stuff.

Things have been fab. Having made it through my first full week of crazy dance shows, I treated myself to some falafel (inferior to the stuff in Israel, but a reasonable facsimile when it's all you can get) and a Thai massage in Itaewon. The massage straightened out my aching muscles pretty well. I was definitely in some pain after an intense week, but the shows went well, and I really, really enjoyed myself, in spite of the excessive sweat and relative exhaustion. I'm looking forward to diving back in tomorrow morning. Yay!


Some other highlights of the week included a show of crazy bar tricks at the going away gathering of a couple of friends...


AND, a trip to the Rosenbraeu. The Rosenbraeu is a place in La Festa (the "hip" bar/shopping district in Ilsan). It is trying pretty hard to be a Biergarten, and actually the beer, which can be purchased by the yard, is really pretty good for Korea. The real draw, however, is the Filipino cover band pictured above. They are beyond awesome. They do songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, followed up by "Let's Get Retarded" by the Black Eyed Peas. They have a FOG MACHINE. It goes without saying that Dylan Thomas and I love this place. When we went last Friday, we got to hang out with the band. That's right, we're vip all the way.

The fourth of July ended up being lots of fun as well. It was determined that bottle rockets were small enough not to get us invaded, so shoot them off, we did. Also, there was much drinking, merry making, guitar playing and singing/belligerent shouting of songs. Rumor has it the night ended with bottle rockets being shot off from behind the English Village "Hollywood sign." Sadly by that point I had already headed home for some Zs. Ah well.

Thus far, it seems as though the rainy season here hasn't been gathering much steam. At the moment, however, I've got a nice downpour to which I'll finish my book and drift happily off to sleep. Yum, yummy yum.

Some People Wear Suits to Work

But I wear this. Seriously.



Never fear, I have not, in fact gained 40 pounds. This thing is padded hard core and it's hot in there, especially when you have 4 dance numbers to make it through. Also, doing choreography with ears like that is pretty interesting...

Today was the opening for A Long Time Ago in Africa. The play (as I may have mentioned) is based on the "Just So" stories by Rudyard Kipling. We are off to a great start. I had lots of fun, and ended up less exhausted than I'd expected. I also, incidentally, split my pants. Luckily no one noticed, thanks to the lovely tutu you see above. The costume designer came right after our last show to pick them up and fix them, so all should be well. It was bad, though, like Elephant chaps.

Last week was pretty crazy, what with doing You're a Star all week and then having rehearsals for A Long Time Ago in Africa before and after the shows. It was definitely good-busy, though and once I get into the rhythm of doing three shows a day, life will normalize again.

I've been spending the majority of my free time these days with Dylan Thomas. I ask you,


are we not a handsome couple? We've been doing fun things like visiting the dogs and cats in his local pet store, enjoying EV parties, watching lots of films whilst devouring mass quantities of chocolate and other junk food, and occasionally imbibing full pitchers of soju cocktail, sometimes through straws. Also, he gave me a lego set for a Michael Moore action figure. Awesome, no? If only I had an Ann Coulter one, too. Then I could make them battle each other.

While we're on the subject of handsome couples, I have to give a shout-out to Mom and Dad, who celebrated their 40th anniversary three days ago. They are now off celebrating on a cruise. Way to go, Albie and Lench!

Also, a happy Independence Day to all of the folks back home (and to my fellow Americans abroad). Shoot off some fireworks in my honor, as we can't do that here in Paju because we are too close to North Korea. I plan to celebrate by playing flag football (what could be more American?) and then drinking some beer. Yee friggin' haw.