14th Boryeong Mud Festival, South Korea

As the hot weather approaches, both local residents and foreigners visited the city of Boryeong, a town around 200 km south of Seoul, South Korea, to enjoy the summer heat at the annually held Boryeong Mud Festival. The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual festival which takes place over a period of around two weeks in July. The first Mud Festival was staged in 1998 and, by 2007, the festival attracted 2.2 million visitors to Boryeong.

The mud is of Boryeong mud flats, is considered to be rich in minerals and is actually used to manufacture cosmetics. In fact, the festival was conceived to promote a range of cosmetics that were produced using mud from the Boryeong mud flats. The festival has grown incredibly popular ever since. (Also see Michigan Residents Celebrate Annual Mud Day)