Rhinestone Shades or Cheap Sunglasses.

In July we had two days off work, so we made the most of the long weekend and took a train to Busan, the second largest city in Korea and home to many beaches. We played on the beach, ate some interesting new cuisine, saw a fish market and a few other sights, took way too many pictures and mainly just relaxed! It was a much needed, if somewhat short break.

Haeundae Beach. We went on a Thursday, so it wasn't too crowded.

Because heaven forbid you get sun on  your skin at the beach.

Happy Happy Happy!

Clayton lost his sunglasses in the ocean, so we found him these aweome cheap shades at a nearby market.

The view from our Love Motel.

We met some random teenage girls on the beach who forced us to kiss while they took a picture. Who are we to decline?

Digging a hole to... Oregon?

Ready... Set... Jump!

The neverending subway car!

Jagalchi Fish Market. It is the largest fish market in Korea.

"Don't eat me!"

This fish were so colorful. I couldn't imagine eating them!

Hey everyone!

Give me five!

Say...Kimchi!

The view from Busan Tower.

The top of a nearby building.

Busan Tower

Gwanggali Beach, where we stayed the last two nights.

The bridge continuously changed color.

On our way to dinner. Raw fish anyone?

On our walk down the beach to dinner, we encountered these two mimes fighting in slow motion. It was a grueling match that ended in a good old fashioned game of Rock. Paper. Scissors.

We were told that we had to eat raw fish in Busan. However, we both agree that we have had better sashimi elsewhere for much cheaper.

A plethora of side dishes.

Don't forget to eat your roasted silkworm larvae! Yum!

(We still haven't actually tried this. You see it frequently sold by street vendors, but we had never seen it in a restaurant before. ) 

Live, squirming sea-worm. It was impossible to chew and had virtually no taste. The ones we didn't eat stayed alive throughout our entire meal. This only made us think about the fact that the ones we did eat were probably doing the backstroke in our stomachs.

Beach loveliness before we left!

Busan Station.

In Korea, many young couples wear matching "couples shirts." Ours may not exactly count, because they aren't the same color... but we felt we looked adequately ridiculous to take a picture.

Goodby Busan!

"A little dirt never hurt anyone..."

Well, July finally came, bringing our much awaited (two day) summer break, and of course, Mud Fest.  Yes, I said Mud Fest.

The Boryeong Mud Festival was started in 1998 as a tourist attraction. The mud is trucked in to the beach from an area nearby. The mud is supposed to have some minerals that are good for your skin, but mostly the festival is an excuse to run around on the beach in the sun, covered in mud. We have been looking forward to it since we decided to come to Korea.

Some wonderful friends of ours who run the incredibly useful website TheYeogiyo.com, organized the trip.  We took a train and stayed in a minbak (aka a big room with sleeping mats and a bathroom) with 26 other people. It was a good group of people and we had a great time. Saturday it rained until the afternoon, but that didn't stop us from putting on our swimsuits and playing in the ocean for a while before getting muddy.

Mud Fest was definitely foreigner central. Even with the rain on Saturday there were a ton of people. We made it our duty to cover ourselves in mud and hug as many unsuspecting clean strangers as we could find. The boys wrote "FREE HUG" on their chests in the mud... and we did our best to mud-ify all those who were not brave enough to do it themselves.  :-)

Along with a zillion foreigners, we also found that there were many photographers running around taking pictures of us and all the rest of the crazies. Perhaps I should re-phrase this. By many, I mean swarms... swarms of photographers taking your picture every time you turned around. We did our best to get on next year's Mud Festival advertisements... or at least the nightly news.

 Sunday morning we woke up to a beautiful, blue sky and 80 degrees at 9am. We spent the day playing... water, mud, water mud. A few hours and one heck of a sunburn later, we went home tired, hot and happy.

One of our favorite things about Korea is seeing all of the signs and tee-shirts in English. 

Sweet foot statue.

The beach in the morning... pre massive numbers of  muddy foreigners.

This is the mud playground before they pumped in the day's mud.

The crowds increase...

The line for the mud slide.. We decided that it was more fun to play in the ocean than stand in line for hours to go down one slide. Wise choice, I think.

These girls were more than happy to pose. Don't miss the quintessencial Korean peace sign.

Mud Prison. How this pink girl managed to stay clean we will never know.

The Muddy Masses.

Because it's not Korea without a girl group dancing on stage in brightly colored outfits.

Ahh! We're covered in mud!

Our group (photo stolen from facebook).

Because what better way to get on next year's poster than to make a muddy human pyramid?

These were all the photographers taking pictures of our awesome pyramid. (again, stolen picture)

All and all, a fantastic weekend.

 Like my dad always says... a little dirt never hurt anyone. :-)