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