Seoul Part 1

So our first real day in Asia started with an 9 hour food tour of Seoul by O'ngo Food Tours.  Since we were only going to be in each city for a couple days, this was one of the things I was most excited about.  We had a private tour that took us around Seoul feeding us and educating us about Korean cuisine.  This was much easier than finding these places on our own (as if we could have found more than one or two of them anyways).

The first post is dedicated to the Seoul Fish Market.  This was the first stop on the tour and certainly an eye opening experience.  We thought at first that this would be the craziest thing we would see the entire trip, but everyday got crazier than the next.

Looking out onto the market.  You can see that it was maybe 60 yards wide.

And at least a quarter of a mile long.

Selling the craziest things imagineable.  These are all kinds of fermented fish.

I also bought a big ass knife.

This is a giant octopus.  The guide suggested that Laura put her hand down there so that you could get an idea of the scale of the tentacles.

So at our first stop, our guide picked out a fish swimming in the tank that Laura named "Johnny".  The fish was swiftly killed with a blow to the head.

Then sliced a moment later.

We stopped a few stalls down and picked up a couple of live octopus's from that orange bowl.

We also got a giant mussel (top right) and a some sea squirts (orangish in the middle)

10 minutes later we were seated eating Johnny raw.  The interesting thing about how Koreans do sushi is that by stunning the fish with a blow to the head all of the muscles tense up.  This leads to a firmer meat rather than the softer sushi you would get at a Japanese restaurant.

And our octopus on the table.

The crazy thing about the octopus is that it would continue moving after it had been killed as you can see in the video.  And since it was still "alive" it would use is suction cups to either hold onto the plate or onto your tongue/gums until you chewed it.  Our guide made sure to tell us to chew it thoroughly so that it wouldn't latch on to your throat as you swallowed it.

This is Laura eating the octopus.  I thought she would only try it once (still impressive), but she actually had several pieces of the raw octopus and of Johnny.

This is another fish that I did not get a picture of before he met his demise, but he was delicious in this spicy red sauce.

As well as a fish stew made from pieces of Johnny that was amazing.