Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

8/15/2005, Korea trip day 4: Eating, shopping, and eating

On our last day, we didn't do much real sightseeing.  We wanted to try some Korean-style sashimi (sliced raw fish), something Pusan is known for.  And, I wanted to buy some CDs.  And, we both wanted to buy souvenirs.  Sorry, but this page will be almost all food.

We spent a couple hours searching for a restaurant to eat this wonderful raw fish specialty food.  In the end, it was expensive and underwhelming.  $40 for the two of us.  Everywhere else, we had been paying $4 to $7 per person for even really good stuff.

We had this plate of sliced fish.  I forget what kind of fish it was.  It was okay, but it was a little dry.  I think they cut and arranged it the day before and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

We also had these little shellfish.  I'm not sure what they're called.  They were cooked.  You pull them out with a toothpick.

This was the amusing part.  They gave us a plate with peanuts and little eggs.  What the hell do I do with this?  Usually, in Japan, eggs like this are raw.  Actually, these ones were hard boiled.

Eating raw fish in Korea is like other things in Korea.  You wrap it in a leave along with lots of RAW garlic, sauce, and whatever else you want.

I did enjoy it.

I ate lots of raw garlic during the trip.

The meal came with this bone soup, which was truly delicious.  It was hard to eat because it was, well, full of bones.  But, the taste was great.

They also gave us a plate of vegetables and lots of RAW garlic.  I really stunk during this trip, due to all of the garlic and the heat.

After lunch, we went for a little walk and saw the yacht harbor, something Akemi saw in the guide book.

And, you bet, I got my ice cream in.

This amusing advertisement was in the subway.  Not sure what it means.

At night, we did some more shopping.  I bought some CDs from my favorite a capella group, the Real Group.  They're from Sweden.  I haven't seen their CDs in Japan.  Their CDs are hard to get in the United States.  But, they had a vast selection in Korea.  I'm not sure why.  They had other Swedish music, too.  It was odd.  Then, we looked for dinner.

I was a little surprised to find lots of restaurants with menus in Korean and Japanese, but not English.  Apparently, Japanese tourists are more prevalent than tourists from anywhere else.

Here's another one.  Korean on the left.  Japanese on the right.

And another one.  Korea on top.  Japanese on the bottom.

Eventually, we ended up at a noodle restaurant.  This soup is just noodles, beef, and a little vegetables.  It was really delicious, like almost everything we at in Korea.  We got the same thing.

Akemi eating dinner.

Me eating dinner.

Like almost everything you eat in Korea, it came with a side of kimchi. (Ice cream does not come with kimchi in Korea, or at least they didn't give me any.

That night, as we were walking around, we stumbled upon this grilled meat (like yakiniku) restaurant with live jazz.  I was disheartened to see that everybody was like us, standing outside the restaurant listening to the free concert without patronizing the shop that was sponsoring it.  There were very few people inside.  But, we had already eaten, so we couldn't go inside.

The musicians.  The photo's a little dark, I know.

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