Travel Songs Update
The music is here! After 30 plus
journals, 1000 plus photos, several countries and almost
four years on the Web, I am launching my third album.
Download it here for free!
July 14-15, 2007
South Korea
 In
the four years I have been in Korea I have never been
to the west coast. I always imagined it to be a flat
land where most of the country’s rice is grown.
I have seen brief glimpses of the tidal flats from television
documentaries about coastal cities. Most of these programs
showed people knee-deep in muck searching for clams
and such. So when I first heard about the “mud
fest” in Boryeong I wasn’t all that interested.
Then one night a friend told me she and a few others
had been there before and it had been a blast. The only
problem she said, was getting to the west coast from
the east coast. This time she rented a bus for the occasion
and was selling tickets. Well, a bus load of friends,
a few beers, and no worries heading for the west coast
sounded like a good time so I joined the tour. So what
if I was going to the flatlands of Korea with it’s
mud and muck. I grew up in the flatlands of Canada in
it’s mud and muck. I know how to muck around.
 We
left Pohang at eight on Saturday morning. It was cold,
grey and raining. A typhoon off the coast of Japan was
whipping up the wind.
‘Perfect weather for ducks and mud
festivals,’ I thought but then who hasn’t
been to at least one music festival that has turned
into a mud fest? Woodstock?
Yes, I was preparing myself; getting into the right
state of mind. The mind is an amazing thing. Some people
practice meditation as a self discipline. Some people
practice the art of self deception. I don’t practice.
I just mix the two together and hope for the best.
I wasn’t prepared for the sunshine thirty minutes
out of Pohang. I can’t sleep when the sun is shining.
I thought I would sleep on the bus. Neither can I sleep
when we are zipping by new scenery.
And surprise, the landscape is not flat! Somebody should
talk to the Korean documentary people because they are
selling this part of the country short. So here we are
on a bus with lots of sunshine, rising mountains and
winding roads. What will the beach be like? I love surprises.
Surprise! The beach is a beautiful golden swath of sand
that stretches out forever. An infinite number of restaurants
line the adjacent road and everywhere people are covered
in mud.
The pictures tell the rest of the story. Thanks Erin and Steph for organizing the tour.
More pictures from Boryeong
here
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