Busan: Jagalchi

A few weeks ago we traveled to Busan for the International Fireworks Festival. I've heard the festival is really a sight but unfortunately, because of the torrents of rain, I'll have to wait until next year to see things exploding in the sky.

Busan was by no means a bust though. Busan, the 2nd or 3rd largest city in Korea, (I could probably look this up but I'm going to be lazy), is located just southeast of Daegu, on the Sea of Japan. Even for late October, it was warm enough to run around in the water, and that's exactly what we did on Friday night when we arrived.

As I said, Saturday was a complete washout. It rained extremely hard for 30 minute intervals. The rest of the time, it just rained steadily. We made the best of the situation though. Our first stop was Jagalchi Fish Market. The market is located right on the water so we were able to watch some pretty impressive fishing vessels head in with the morning catch.

Let me explain how Jagalchi Fish Market works. The ground floor is basically a living menu. Each vendor has a designated area on one of the top floors for preparing and serving their goods. 

Step One: Find something identifiable while keeping in mind that you will eat that very fish a few minutes later. If find yourself growing particularly fond of a specific Octopus, step away, unless you respect it enough to devour it raw. It's tentacles will still be writhing around on the plate and they will attach themselves to the inside of your mouth. If you really think you're up for the fight, get ready to chew hard and fast. Don't dishonor yourself or the fish by letting it crawl down your throat, causing you to probably choke to death in front of everyone. The people are busy here. They have enough fish to clean and they certainly don't need to waste their time mopping you up off of the floor.

Step Two: Stand clear of the squid! They're feisty little bastards. We watched one leap from it's basket and nearly send two young girls into cardiac arrest. I was also lucky enough to be assaulted by the same squid that we were going to eat. I have to give it to this guy, he put up a fight, but in the end, I digested him.

Step Three: Head upstairs and get ready to eat. That's basically it. Pick some fish, watch out for the live ones, and then chew thoroughly.  

We circled the bottom floor once before deciding on our meal. We were lucky enough to meet a vendor who spoke pretty good English so we ordered from his baskets o' fish. Most of our meal would be sashimi, which is just slices of raw fish. We had tuna, what I believe to have been fluke or flounder, octopus tentacles, (as previously documented), squid, (again, see above), two grilled fish that were white, flaky, and delicious, (the nice woman who served us forced our friend to eat the eye ball. Really wish I would have recorded that but I was too busy fighting with tentacles), and some type of shellfish whose innards can only be described as looking intestinal. I would have taken more pictures but I wanted to eat my lunch before it flopped back into the sea.