Yeosu World Expo

The Worlds Expo was in Korea down along the southern tip in a city called Yeosu. The theme of this years expo was the Living Ocean and Coasts. Korea, being incredibly convenient, built a KTX train stop right in the center of the Expo and named it Yeosu Expo. Can’t get more convenient than that so we took the KTX, high speed train, from Seoul to Yeosu where we booked a motel for the weekend.

 We got up nice and early on Saturday morning to get as much time as possible in the expo. When we arrived at the ticket counter we almost bought our tickets for 33,000 won until we realized that if you have a group of foreigners of 10 or more you can get each ticket for only 10,000 won. This was a no-brainer since we already had 6 people we just scrounged up 2 more couples to join in on our foreigner discount. Just another reason foreigners have it far too easy in this country!

Expo Digital Gallery

Once inside the expo we tried to see as many country pavilions as we could and tried to avoid as many lines as possible. Once we were thoroughly exhausted from walking around in the heat we left the expo, with our one time re-entry stamp, to get some Korean BBQ. After dinner we went back into the expo for a Kpop show staring Super Junior and CN Blue. The final stop of the night was the Big “O” show where a light and water show was set up right where the edge of the water met with the pavilion.

 

Boryeong Mud Festival

Located on Daecheon Beach is an annual festival known as the Boryeong Mud Festival. The Koreans claim the mud provides skin benefits, but I’m sure most foreigners are just there to play in the mud and abuse their livers! A group of us went to on Friday night with one of the Korean tour groups. We settled into our pensions and called it a night before the festivities started in the morning. The next day we went on the search for breakfast among the local food stands that set up shop along the beach. At lunch our tour group provided us with hamburgers and chili cheese dogs before we headed into the festival for some muddy fun.

In the festival troughs set up filled with mud and paintbrushes to paint yourself with mud. Then once inside there are pools set up filled with wet mud for mud wrestling and inflatable slides slicked down with mud and water. We spent the day going down the slides and running back and forth from the ocean and the majority of the activities.

 

Once the sun went down we cleaned up for dinner and enjoyed fireworks to finish off the night. Unfortunately the rains started at night, but this didn’t stop everyone from having a good time. There were tents set up with food, drinks and music and people had a great time.

The next morning we packed up our things to head home.