Friends, Fights, Fish…
hola amigos and amigas,
It’s been a pretty crazy weekend, with enough highlights to make a brief blog entry worthy. Friday, Nic and I accompanied our friends to a great seafood restaurant close to our workplace. We ordered some Hwe, which is raw fish, and also had fried shell fish, which consisted mostly of varieties of which I was unfamiliar. I also ate a kind of larvae thing, a fairly daring endeavor, I reckon. Fortunately, it didn’t taste as bad as it looked. The feed was incredible. The food here, more than anything else, keeps me satisfied. We are both really loving Korea these days, food especially. Anyway, with this amazing meal, we drank the customary Korean spirits, which lifted our own spirits and had us going for the usual post-dinner beer at Starface, which essentially turned into a nasty bender wherein myself and a couple of bros almost had to go toe-to-toe with some obnoxious American GIs. Thank God it didn’t get to that point. We left the windowless bar (U2) and walked into the light of day at nearly 7 AM, having lost track of time. I quit drinking on Saturday. No more! Ever! Well, that lasted until Sunday.
Our good friends Tim and Sujeong joined us on another Nampodong adventure. I really wanted to shop around the markets, find some Western health food products and a couple souvenirs for my mom’s upcoming birthday. It was a blast. I love Nampodong. It really is an ultra-crowded, pushy, over-stimulating racket, but the more I get used to that kind of thing, the more I actually enjoy it. Following our shopping spree, we headed across the street to the world famous Jagalchi Fish (but, oh so much more!) Market. This is the harbour front, a sprawling tent city with many goods for sale and food to eat. While walking along perusing the sights, for the first time something visual here actually made my stomach turn. The pigs heads (Jagalchi had several of its own, propped up on the bare jawbones of wild boars) were nothing compared to this: living, skinned eels, squirming around in their own blood. God, it makes me grimace now as I write. Bloody disgusting. Here’s a sample of some of the stuff that was being sold at Jagalchi Market: huge octopuses, manta rays, dog meat, whale meat, pigs heads and feet, puffer fish, giant squids and prawns, innumerable species of fish, mostly living, shell fish of all kinds, skinned eels, and tons more. If you saw something you liked, you could just go over and in some cases sit in a little tent, drink soju, and eat whatever they pulled out of their tanks for you. It was really authentic. A big fight broke out at one stand. Some old drunk guy was pissing off the family that ran the stand. Obviously, we didn’t really know what was happening, or who was in the wrong, but it was loud and brutal. A young family member gave it to the old guy pretty bad, and all the while ajumas were wrestling and screaming. To be honest, I see these kinds of skirmishes here quite regularly. It seems that a lot of the old alcoholics here have sharp tongues, and they expect everyone to do everything for them. For example, I recently watched an old man trying to mooch an egg off a store owner, just because he was old (and was turning on his soju-oozing charm), and get really nasty when the female store owner lady wouldn’t comply. People in Korea often sound like they’re fighting, though, when in actuality, they’re just talking about the weather. But this exchange was one of the more brutal ones I’ve seen here.
After checking out the harbour front, which I want to video record some day, we went to the inside part of the market. It was just as cool and a bit crazier still. It was just this big arena-like space with tank upon tank of fish and other sea creatures. We actually recognised it from the Lonely Planet show. See the appropriated image below.
The stand owners were unbelievably pushy. We had live lobsters and king crabs shoved in our faces immediately upon entering. The venders pretty much try to corner you and corral you into their little area, so you’ll sit and buy some food. We decided that, even though we had just been out for seafood on Friday, it would be a good idea to eat something. After all, we were in Korea’s most beloved fish market, a place where people from Seoul fly down to dine at. We ran into a German and a Canadian guy, both a little pissed and extremely friendly, and they convinced us that the man who had cooked their puffer fish was the guy to buy seafood from. They were both alive after eating one of the most poisonous edible creatures in the world, so we decided to stay. Also, the Korean vender was hilarious. He sat with us, joked with us, tried on our sunglasses, took pictures with us, and fed us an array of items that I wouldn’t normally consider putting into my mouth. Our dinner looked roughly like the borrowed photo below:
Everything was raw: raw fish, raw oysters, raw sea anomones (er… whatever), raw eel compressed into oily cubes, all consumed with soju, which is recommended for keeping bacteria down when eating uncooked meat! Perhaps we took this recommendation a little too far, because before you know it, we were on another somewhat messy bender. Bursting with fish, which I’m in no hurry to eat again anytime soon, we went to a beer market, which is basically a bar where you serve yourself. Despite the fact that it was Sunday night, and I had given up drinking for good less than 24 hours previously, and we had spent a good part of the day buying health products, in no time our table was covered with empty beer bottles. We grabbed some road pops, jumped in a cab, and made for Haeundae. It only cost us $13, and took just over a half and hour, which makes me happy because I really enjoy that area and intend to go back soon. Somehow, and I’m really at a loss here as to how, we ended up back at U2, this time remaining there until merely 3:30 AM (which is kind of late when you have to get up at 8 to teach kids for 9 hours).
I survived the day, and so did Nicole, although she wimped out and ducked out of work for the afternoon. Fun day. But now I quit drinking again… until we go Noraebanging (singing in a singing room) on Friday, which is our tentative plan. I joined a yoga class. I’ve gone once. It almost killed me. Yoga is not easy, especially when you do it with people who know what they’re doing and how to push you. This lady studied yoga for five years in India. She pushed me hard. I’m a bit scared to go back!
And how about those habs! Kiqueing la cous of la carolina clownes! Game 1: 6-1. Just like their old dynasty teams, this team is built around a solid and suddenly star-quality goalie, Huet. Feels to me that it’s the year for another franchise cup. And wouldn’t it be my luck that it’ll happen while I’m all the way the fuck over here! Oh well. I got fish. Lots and lots of fish.
Peace, y’all. Go Canadiens.
Su Tee Bun
