Mud Fest... I've never been so muddy in my life.

Mudddddyyyy times! We, Dan and I and 5 of our friends here, went to mud fest, Korea's biggest festival, last weekend. There is a huge natural mud beach, that has goopy, thick, slimy, gray, nutritious mud! People get covered in the stuff from head to toe, either just for the fun of it, or because it has anti aging, 'good for your skin' stuff in it. We first went to the mud beach and rolled around in the stuff, had it clumped on top of our heads, squished between our toes, accidentally, or in Dan's case, not so accidentally, rubbed into our eyes. He wanted to prove to me that it isn't so bad having a little mud right on the eyelid, or near the old eye, cause he accidentally rubbed some into my eye. So he took a handful of mud and told me to watch and he rubbed it all over one of his eyelids, then attempted to open his eye and said, "ohhh, I can't see!!" It was pretty hilarious!


Dan and I after we painted ourselves with mud!


The 7 of us, who went on the trip. Left to right - Leah, Linda, Dan Fitz, Michelle, Mike, me and Dan, my honey! These were the outfits we wore when going to the mud beach... when we came off the beach we were literally covered in thick gray mud. It was loaded into my hair, all over my whole body, including my face. We were so muddy that no one was able to get my camera to capture it, sadly.

Mud bath. This mud was hauled to the sand beach from the mud beach for the festival.

The natural mud beach and some things to jump on and crawl through.


Anyways, there was mud fights, chicken fights, mud wrestling, a drill where we had to crawl, run, jump over things etc. with this Korean man yelling at us to go faster. Then once it was all finished we went up to this water truck and got hosed down by freezing cold water with the drill Sargent holding the hose in hand, taking way to much pleasure in hosing us down.

Once that was finished the bus took us to the beach town where we checked into our room and then we went to the sand beach, painted ourselves with mud (see pic directly above and the first one of Dan and I) and hung out, listening to live music that was playing off a big stage on the beach. We also went swimming, strolled the beach, watched the fireworks, listened to a guy with his guitar singing songs on the beach, we sang along too for some of them. It was pretty awesome!

You down with DMZ? Ya, you know me! You down with DMZ? Ya, you know me!

Dan's cousin Joanna was here with her hubby, Eugene, a few weeks ago. They stayed with us for a few days and we went to the DMZ. For those who don't know what the DMZ is, it's the demilitarized zone that lies between North and South Korea. See pics and explanations below.

Dan and his cousins, striking a pose at a park we went to. Pretty fabulous, if I do say so.
A North Korean city with the world's biggest flag flying over it. It's a 600 pound flag. Anyways, this city isn't even a real city, it's just an illusion, set up by the Korean government, to trick the North Koreans into thinking that there are people living that close to the South Korean border. The UN and US soldiers call it Propaganda Village. It's buildings are all empty, as are the streets. Although, a small group of people cleaning and turning on lights reside within the village.

Our tour guide. He is surrounded by North Korea on 3 out of 4 sides of himself. There are also active mine fields just off to his left.

Inside the DMZ, near the western coast of the peninsula, is a place called Panmunjeom, home of the Joint Security Area; it is the only place where North and South connect. You can see the one soldier half behind a building and half exposed. This is a safety measure, in case the North Koreans ever started shooting, he could quickly duck behind the wall.

This is the actual border. The pebbled side is South Korea and the dirt side is the North. Notice that I took the shot from the North Korean side... cause I was in North Korea!!!

Dan and I standing next to a rock soldier. His fists tightly clenched, always. The door behind him leads right onto North Korean soil. He is guarding that door. He was like a rock... I guess that's where they get their names, hmm... interesting.... anyways, standing next to him it felt like there was a force field around him, like he was solid and unmovable. It's hard to explain, but it was certainly noticible.

Dan in the 3rd tunnel. This is one of four tunnels that the North Koreans were secretly digging in an attempt to sneak into South Korea. We walked down into it, at a steep, constant descent and I secretly took pics. They didn't turn out very good, cause I couldn't use my flash. Anyways, it's really just a tunnel, but it was still neat walking around in it. This picture is near the entrance, later on the walls get jagged, rocky and really wet.

And this concludes the trip to the DMZ. :)

Zoos are sad, but this one was the worst!

I went to the zoo on Thursday with my little kids, for a field trip. I already think zoos are really depressing, but I have to say that this was the saddest zoo I have ever seen. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's neat to see exotic animals up close, but I would rather watch the nature channel than see these poor things chained up or caged in the way they were. Anyways, you are probably wondering why I am bothering to show you these sad pics... but maybe if we all become aware of the sadness, then we will stop going to the zoo and stop supporting these terrible living conditions for the helpless animals.

This poor ape just sat in his empty cage reaching out for me to hold his hand, staring into my soul.
This orangutan at least got to be out of his cage. His job is to sit and pose for pictures with patrons of the zoo. He's really cute, and although he does at least get some stimulation, I still feel bad for him.
These monkeys were doing tricks for us... jumping, rolling, bowing... etc. that's no life for a monkey!
Deer caged in.
A lion caged up in a small area. He sat there and growled at us.
A bull in a small pen.
Sad lama... all penned up too.
A monkey staring into my eyes... I swear he was pleading for help. Look at his cage!! There is nothing stimulating in there and it's so small!! Poor animals.

Anyways, that was my trip to the zoo. I tried to have fun, cause I was with all the kids and I didn't want to be a downer. It was exciting to see them get so excited about the animals. Like I said, it's neat to see animals that I rarely get to see. But at the expense of their quality of life, I don't think it's worth it. I kept pointing out to my kids how sad it all was.

I would say to them, "Look at the lion (or deer, or monkey... or bull, etc), he's so sad."
"Why teacher? Why sad?"
"Because, he's so big and he should be running around and playing, but he's is stuck here. Wouldn't you be sad if you were in there?"
"Yes, teacher".

I want to live in a beach town!

A few weeks ago some friends of mine (Mike, Michelle, Linda and of course, Dan) went to Busan. It's a coastal city on the Southern tip of South Korea. We took a train there from Seoul. We were only there for one night, but it was so much fun and it only confirmed how much I love the ocean and seeing new places!

We hung out at the beach and went swimming. We watched people throw each other into the water and bury each other in the sand. There was a fashion show dress rehearsal on the beach all day and the real show was later that night. We went to a really great aquarium later in the afternoon, with the coolest sea creatures!! We ate at good restaurants all weekend and had some amazing Indian food on the Saturday night! We went on bumper cars and strolled the boardwalk at night. It was only a weekend, but felt like a real holiday!

A view down a really nice beach in town, just after sunset.

We were enjoying some early afternoon mudslides before hitting the beach. Left to right- Me, Michelle and Linda.

We went to an aquarium that was situated on the beach. We really liked this fish, so I pretended to kiss him, naturally. There were sooo many other cool fish there too, especially the jelly fish!

My good friend Linda, whom I call "Linder". She got a little sandy there on the beach, it was amusing to just watch her be so full of sand.

Cuddling up on the beach with my sweetie.

Us doing what we do best, laying around.

A giant turtle going up for air, amidst the shark infested tank.

Check out those shark teeth! We got to walk through this cool glass tube. There were sharks swimming over us and all around us! I kept having flashes of how screwed we be if the glass broke... or if I somehow got into that tank.

Sigh... what a great weekend!