8 Legs Dancing on my Tongue

The author has chosen to grace the blogosphere with his humble and subtle presence once more. He is alive and kicking in a way not dissimilar to his seafood supper several nights ago. We can crawl to that subject in a moment or two. Why has the righteous and respected writer taken so long to tap a few nouns, verbs and adjectives your way? Well, he has had the pleasure of working two 6 day weeks in row; and has instead handily directed his energies not at his beautiful blog but rather at not devouring the souls of the children who call themselves his students.

Enough about my eager little tattle-tales who spare no moment to mention that so-and-so has spoken Korean and I try in a professional manner to tell them that teacher couldn’t care any less than he already does about that. A video is under my more recent photos with some of the cuter ones talking about what dreams are. Take that, Mr. Bill Cosby—Korean kids say the darndest things. Actually it was funnier until I got the camera out. Those are some of my favorite kids in the whole school and I think I’ve had to punish only one maybe once in five months of teaching them.

Another video which you should check out is from another trip to the alien world that is the Noryangin fish market—though you don’t need to don an avatar body or 3D glasses to experience it. Just to remind the friends, family and random Google hits out there; Noryangin is an old, utilitarian yet colorful and animated market. If it’s edible and has been discovered in the ocean it can be purchased and eaten here. Fish tanks after fish tanks of mostly live fish of all sizes, octopus escaping out of their tanks or bowls, and vendors aggressively hawking their sea creatures who themselves can be scarier than anything you will see while walking through the rows and rows of swimming, crawling, shelled, spongy, little and large sea monsters for sale.

 I went with one goal in mind: to choose and eat live baby octopus legs. Oh yes and it was done. I went with a friend and picked out several fish (who were clubbed to death readily dispatched) for a stew and raw Korean style sashimi and one very unfortunate (baby) octopus. I’m not entirely sure if it was a baby or just small but either way: it was still very much alive.

So we were led up to what I think was the same restaurant that I ate at previously and anxiously awaited the still-live, squirming plate of octopus legs that would be my appetizer. And sooner than maybe I had hoped, there it was. Moving, pulsating it was very much still “alive,” though just the legs. They cut the legs off (scissors?) and then douse the poor guy in tasty sesame oil. The video should take care of any more need for descriptions but in it I wasn’t all that frightened by it, just feeling how the suction cups were grabbing onto my teeth, lips, and tongue. It was an interesting sensation for sure—I’ve never had a food grab me back. I felt the most Klingon I ever have while gobbling this dish up.  Warning: Chew everything; this dish can kill you by getting stuck in your esophagus. I was not killed.

Afterwards when the plate of raw halibut came it was hard not half-expecting it to start wiggling in my chopsticks which made it slightly less enjoyable than the first time—which was crazy delicious. We finished off the octo-baby-legs by throwing them into the stew and putting them out of their misery. They managed to retain life for about 30-40 minutes after they were put on a plate and introduced to their new home: my mouth.

Anyway, then I spent the next couple of weeks NOT updating this blog and working a lot and some other stuff that involves Iran and Nicaragua that’s totally legal but I just can’t tell you about it right now. Also Korean is still hard but it’s starting to click in some areas. Korean makes me feel so embarrassed about any and all errors I ever made/make in Spanish.

All for now,

대니 (Danny)