Story highlights
Millions of visitors get filthy in Boryeong, South Korea
Organizers aim to make mud festival more family friendly this year
Everything mud-related goes
Festival originally launched to promote cosmetic mud treatments
Call it the world’s biggest mud fight or its largest group cosmetic treatment – either way, millions of visitors are making their way to Boryeong, South Chungcheong Province this week for South Korea’s most popular festival.
The 16th annual Boryeong Mud Festival, which kicked off this past weekend and will run until July 28, hopes to beat its record of 3 million participants last year.
Organizers say this year’s mud bath is expected to attract 300,000 foreign tourists, up 22,000 from last year. Korean media have reported that trains to Boryeong are already packed with dirt-ready foreigners.
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This year’s festival
Originally launched to promote the cosmetic benefits of the local mud, the festival has become an annual frenzy in which visitors take part in numerous mud-related activities, including mud wrestling and a mud marathon.
“This year, we amped up the Famiily Zone to meet the demands of people traveling with children,” say event organizers. “There are many foreign families traveling to Korea just for the festival.”
Local beer company Hite Jinro (maker of the best-selling selling liquor in the world) is throwing a rock festival in Boryeong for the first time this year and hosting K-Pop concerts and “garden beer parties” until August.
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To cater to the tastes of foreign visitors, some area restaurants are being converted into pizza and hamburger joints during the festival to provide dining options beyond traditional hoe-jip (Korean sashimi restaurants) or restaurants selling grilled shellfish.
July 19-28, 2013
1029-3, Sinheuk-dong, Boryeong-si, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea
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