38 Things Other Than the 38th Parallel

So this a Part II of sorts, since the honorable author wanted to split up the post and if you haven’t read the post previous then you should go do that at a point before you, a reader feared and respected by other readers of blogs for how passionate you are for checking this, your favorite blog, forget about it. Follow? Good. The author, other than liking to refer to himself in the third person, likes commas, which separate his thoughts, sometimes his thoughts from his thoughts, and then allow you to reenter the normal stream of continuity that you were really hoping for, and making any English teacher the author ever had, assuming they read this, cringe at his willfully, flaunting disregard for the proper usage of punctuation. Now on to the excitement of Filipinos, fish, and Pepero!

So post DMZ, on 11/11, as a nation, South Korea celebrated a holiday more corporate, capitalist and frivolous than Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and yes, Valentine’s Day combined: Pepero Day. Pepero, also known as Poki in Japan I believe, are kind of bread stick lightly coated in chocolate. Well on 11/11 every year since whenever someone had some sort of mad-genius epiphany, little old South Korea has been celebrating a holiday in which you go buy one brand of candy and exchange it with friends (and teachers) just because 11/11 looks kind of like 4 Pepero sticks (or one could argue 4 sticks of dynamite, or 4 buildings, or mathematically the number 1 since 11 by 11 is 1.) and somehow this god amongst men was able to sell the idea to an entire nation so now every November the stockholders of Pepero Inc. do very, very well. One of the boxes I received, under the name of Danny Teacher, is featured as a photo in the photos on the right. ----------->

I still go to Korean class and to do so I must take the subway to get to class and I have to transfer in Dongdaemun which is a fairly large station. Rushing through the station is akin to being in Logan’s Run, underground running to see Carnival, while dangerous ajuma, little old Korean ladies, elbow you and ride the trains for free so you’re like, “Yo lady! What’s your problem? I had to pay to get on this train and you ride for free so stop giving me death stares after bruising my rib cage, what did I do to you!?!?” At least that’s what goes through my mind.

So today, today today, not a day from two weeks ago, which means this entertainment is more current than movies at the North Bend Theater growing up, I went to the No Rayng Jin fish market in Seoul with my buddy Minha. Pike Place in Seattle: Get a life, you ain’t a market or if you are you’re a mere child. I have been to several major world markets and Seattle is hurting for something so wonderful as this temple, this Costco of seafood. I want my readers to think of ANYTHNG from the ocean and that, whatever you’re thinking of, is something you can get and eat at the market. King crabs, lobster from Maine, sting rays, clams, mussels, tunas, salmon, and virtually anything that isn’t a mermaid and edible is available at the market. I even saw two fish chosen by a consumer and then beaten on the head with a pokey stick on the ground by a helpful fish vendor. Not for the animal activists out there. Unfortunately I didn’t get video of this.

Minha and I wandered around taking photos, avoiding the aggressive fish hawkers, and eventually decided to buy a whole halibut to eat raw. As shown in videos on the photo link, they killed it—more humanely than the other vendor, and cut it up right in front of us. They then put it on a plate of radish shavings that soak up the toxins that may be in the fish and wrap it in plastic. This plate, along with a baggie of the skin and bones, is then brought up to a restaurant of your choosing where they compliment your fresh, fresh fish with kimchi and side dishes and make a spicy fish soup from the non-sushi parts. We ate the fish raw, known as hwea in Korea—crazy delicious and if you haven’t had just-live halibut raw you haven’t had one of the top ten best dishes or fishes I have had the pleasure of consuming. I can still feel the texture in my teeth and it is good. Other dishes in the top ten in case you’re wondering are tacos in Mexico, baguettes in France, fried clams on Cape Cod, steak in Argentina, and empanadas in Chile. Admittedly, I gets [sic] around.

Last and probably least on this epically proportioned blog entry times 2. I went to Hyewa to get coffee with Minha after the fish and visited a Filipino market on the sidewalk which had sausages, pork rinds and people who spoke very good English and said excuse me!—which is kind of a big thing here in South Korea since the Koreas don’t seem to have a word for it. I enjoyed it and will be going back. Also to the fish market if you can’t tell that I was in love with that place.

Anyway, again the photos I took can’t in anyway make you seem like you were there with me but the videos might do a little better job. Last I leave you with a question: Have I been here 3 months already?