Do you like seafood?

Why yes, yes I do like sea food.

So that was how my conversation went with some of my Korean friends. So next they asked me, 'Do you like shrimp?'
'no i dont like it... I love it'

So they decided to put that to the test, although they were completely unaware that they were doing so.

So after work I met up with them at a local subway station. My close friends 수미 (sue-mi) and 홈 시 (mr hom) decided on sea food and went out to eat. Sea food is cool right?

So as we are walking into the restaraunt 수미 and I stopped to admire the huge water tanks out front. One of them is full of octupus, another full of live crab and another full of live squids. Then there was another full of some sort of creature that had like 8ish tiny legs and a big head, and a long tail swimming around. After asking 수미 what they were I learned that those were shrimp.

I thought, 'oh! cool they like to display that their food is fresh, right?'

So we sit down and order the shrimp and our first dish comes out. Some yummy Brown Seaweed Soup. And dont bother asking what it looks like, it looks exactly like it sounds. It is a bowl of brown seaweed.

As sarcastic as I am being about it; it actually was pretty decent. I ate most of the bowl.

So now for the main course!

I see one of the waiters finish preparing a large skillet with salt and some sauce and a heavy glass lid. THEN!!!! He walked over to the shimp tank with a big net and scooped a whole load of shrimp into the skillet! THEN he walked over to our table and set down the skillet on a fire he lit in the middle of our table!!

Yeah! the shrimp were still all moving and their antenee were going crazy! (But that isn't all)

So i think my jaw was on the table ever since they brought the brown seaweed soup but this was waaay beyond that.

So the shimp are just chillin' in the pan being cooked alive for a minute or 2 but then I guess it started getting hot and that is where the heavy glass lid came in handy!

The little dudes were jumping so hard and smashing into the glass lid and trying to fight their way out. My poor little friends never had a chance. It was amazing to watch, for like 5 minutes they were jumping around and fighting each other!

My korean friends fully caught on that this was my first time ever seeing anything like this and they were having a really good laugh. They were talking about how I felt bad for the shrimp (which i kinda did because we were cooking them ALIVE. But whatev, their little black eyes boiled out and they curled up after about 10 mintues. After thinking about it... It is kinda convenient that they were alive.. I mean, we never had to stir the meat, it was self stirred food. ^_-

Oh believe me, I am not done yet!

So next we all put on some thick cloth gloves (common in Korea) so our hands wouldn't get dirty or the shrimp wouldnt burn us.
Then Mr. Hom grabs a pair of siccors and starts picking up the shrimp and giving them a nice lil decapitation and throwing the body into a bowl and the heads back in the pan.

(Phew! we dont have to eat the heads!)

By this time I was sucking down the soju figuring maybe it could be a stomach disinfectant or something ^_^ i think it worked, but i havent gone #2 yet so I will let you know.

So then we use our nice protection gloves and rip the shells off the shrimp and pop the shrimp right on in!

OMG OMG OMG THEY WERE SOOOO TASTEY! 진짜 아주 나무 맛있어요

best shrimp I have ever had... I tell no lies.

I'm not done...

So we finished the waaay too tastey shimpies.. Well the bodies at least and then we started digging into the heads!

Yeah, at first I was stunned and as wide eyed as could be as my korean friends started eating them.

speechless...

Then they offered me some.. so speech came, "More Soju Please!" (translation of course)

Yeah so with the heads, I would rip off the shell (I.E. the freaking exoskeletin skull) which had the boiled eyes sticking out the front and the antenee and then I would squeeze it a little to see if there were brains in there. Why, yes i think there were : /

Yeah I was poppin those suckers right on in my mouth. They were OK. Still tasted good but I think next time I will stick to the body.

No.. I am not done.

So then Mr. Hom... ... ... (hold on, still recovering from the shock) just grabs up a head, boiled eyes, exoskull, antenee and all and pops that sucker in his mouth!

ME: "WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!?!?!?!?!?!?!" (korean for what / why / wow)
Hom: "Your turn, good for you, makes you a man, good for stamina" (translation)

So after staring at the boiled out eyes for a hell of a long time, I did it.

yeah, i did it.

wait one more time.

i did it.

I ate that.

So that was not so tastey.. a little on the crunchy side. The antenee were the worst part.

Okay I am done for now.

After that the rest of the night was pretty chill, good old singing and hanging out with lots more food (though not quite so ... .. unique food)

But actually I am NOT DONE!

Next time we go out we are going to get some yummy pig skin. I cant wait ~~~~~~ O.O



Off topic and a bit more serious:

Okay well, I have a lot more to talk about but i never have the time to do it. Lots of work and lots of other things. Life is good here, infact I really really love it here. I have my regrets about missing important things in San Diego but I am living a dream I have had for a long long time. So I love you guys and miss you soo much. Please understand that I had to come here and do this; I have had more experiences here than I ever thought possible.

Back to the fun stuff:

So I would love to post about my students dome rocking some poor university student with a muffin from the 3rd floor window, or any of the things my students do all the time that leave me very wide eyed O.O , or my church family, or my constant study of Korean, or my many korean friends that I try to communicate with, or just the amount of crazy experiences here, or even my foreigner friends who are all very interesting people but time is a big issue here.

as Koreans say: 빨리 빨리 hurry hurry

Thanksgiving! (추석)

Korean thanksgiving was great! It is based off the lunar calandar though so it changes which day of the year it falls on. Unfortunately this year it fell on saturday so I only got 2 days off work, but enough complaining! It was wonderful! The picture above in inside a great concert / TV broadcasting hall where the President of Korea sat 10 rows infront of me then read poems on stage and many Korean famous music groups performed. But before that I want to talk about some other very fun things that happened first!

So first my good friend Calvin (궝선) and I went to the far east side of Seoul to go to a traditional Korean festival. Calvin is in the same shape as I am with family, his family is in Japan and so we were some of the few people in Korea who weren't with their families. But that is OK! We had fun anyhow, first it took around 3 hours of travel because of subways and buses and the like but when we got there it was a rather quiet peaceful park with only like 50 cents admission fee so I couldn't complain.

We went over to the festival area and there were loads of Koreans wearing Hanbok's and playing the Korean traditional games (which i sucked big time at). First there was the making of Duc which is basically rice pounded by a big hammer until it becomes more like a paste and it has seasoning put on the inside then after it is rolled into a ball. But we practiced making some Duc!

Starts like this:


Ends like this:


I dont think I actually ate that one for fear of germs but I eat Duc all the time and it's not bad. Then we got to see some old school Korean cultural music and I even got a picture with one of the guys. Calvin is the best buddy to have around because he hooks me up with great pictures all the time. They were interesting but it got a little dull after a while and I think it was even more dull for poor Calvin because he didnt see anything that new or special. I was wide eyed the whole time because I had never seen anything like this place.

First off the Kids in hanboks are the cutest thing I have ever seen.


Then there were all these fun games where people were using rope whips to keep tops spinning on the ground and rolling metal rings around with a little metal racking stick. Hmm hard to describe... But anyways the kids and the Korean middle aged men in suits sucked, then the old 아자씨 (Korean old man) comes up and shows everyone up. It was pretty funny. But anyway I got to see many super unique things that I am at a loss to describe.

One last thing i will try to describe because it was pretty sweet. So the festival music guys with the drums had this thing on their head that would whip around all over the place the whole time. It looked really cool, like it was always floating and that is the of my ability to describe it sorry...


So then after that and another hour in the Subway Calvin and I had some wonderful soup and met up with another of our best buddies 이정아 (Jeong-ah Lee) and she was super awesome! She got us tickets to see this wonderful TV special on thanksgiving for free and the president of Korea was there! yeah crazy right!

Well first we had some time to burn so 정아 (Jeong-ah) brought some thanks giving food that her family made and it was very very tastey! So we hung out in 요이도 (Yo-ei-do) park which is like The Park in Korea. Comparable to Central Park in New York and it is very close to where the Korean congress meets. Anways I can't communicate with 정아 that great but she is a really awesome person. Almost every Korean I have met has suprised me with how nice they are.


So the concert finally started and the security was huge because the president was there sitting in the middle over everyone and many other important dignitaries from America and other nations were also present. But other than the dignitaries who were old dudes I was the only foreigner there and as much as i try not to I kinda stand out. So I was getting odd looks all the time but I am pretty used to the by now but I cant kick the habit of checking my fly sometimes when people are staring at me.

The show was wonderful and it was about being generous and giving to others. So a good thanksgiving message. Some of the artists had birth defects or problems but it was about helping them and each other and encouraging people to do so. So the president read some poems about giving and helping. It was a good thanksgiving message.

This show was broadcast on Korea's biggest TV channel the KBS (Korean Broadcast station) and it was very well done. And yes 소녀시대 or Girls Generation was there but they didnt do "Gee" because apparently that song is pretty old in Korea so they did their newer songs which were pretty well done and I am pretty sure they were actually singing, i dont think it was lip syncing. Either was it was great and they are really fine! Calvin was yelling for one of the girls named Jessica the whole time, and it was pretty funny.

We weren't allowed to take pictures during it but Calvin was brave enough to snap one off at the end. My white hair was already drawing enough attention so I didnt but his photo is at the top of the post. It has 소녀시대 on the left in the blue outfits.

It made for a great thanksgiving and the next day was sunday so I went to church and that day was just as wonderful. Even though it was a Korean holiday it did make me wish to be with my family but the church members were really great. We hung out together all day and played games and even though I can't communicate well with most people they are really accepting of me.

We played 윷놀이 or the Korean game with the sticks that is very traditional and fun. And they really tried to include me in the other games as much as they could. I feel bad because things didnt work exactly as expected with the other games when they try to include me but well we all had a good time.

Then after spending the whole day with everyone who just about welcomes me as a family member everyone (except Calvin and I) brought loads of thanksgiving food and we shared it all. It was a really great time but I will admit it was a bit difficult being away from home during thanksgiving; even if it is the Korean thanksgiving.

Link to my other pictures: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdrobison100%2FkgTWyI%3Ffeat%3Ddirectlink&h=10f599a075b1d6903f35d44351a0781f

Well as normal I dont have much time which means I dont have time to proof read this so, sorry for my many errors. I am an OK English teacher I swear!

안녕 annyeong peace