Fish Market Extravaganza

I’ve never been a big fan of breakfast. It might be because I hate getting up in the mornings more than anything else in the world so I don’t manage to get out of bed until five minutes before I have to leave. But I love breakfast here! For the first time in my life, I am consistently getting out of bed at 8am with no alarm. It’s kind of creeping me out…

This morning was fairly uneventful. I read a book. I tried calling Min Jae but he was sleeping so I said I would call him back later. Mom’s friend was coming over in the afternoon so when the friend called to say she was at the subway station, Mom went out to get her. (The subway station is a bit far from the apartment.) I waited. And waited. And waited. Where in the world was she? One by one, everyone came home. Even Mom’s friend arrived! But there was no sign of Mom. Eventually she wandered back in the house. *super confused <-- me, not Mom* And…no valid explanation. Hmph.

Heather called a short while later and it was fun to chat with her. Mom had bought a phone card here but it doesn’t work. We need to take it back to the store or something. The rest of the day was BORING. *twiddling thumbs*I couldn’t do anything on my laptop because I didn’t have convertor plug so I didn’t have a power source! ARGH! ! Although I was more worried about my camera battery expiring than anything else.

Finally, it was decided that we would go to the Norangjin fish market for dinner. Sook Mo #1 was buying because it had been Jung Min’s birthday the day before. I was glad to be getting out of the house and the prospect of seeing Young Jin and Jung Min was exciting. Except…THEY WEREN’T THERE! *doom* Ok. Does it make any sense to have a birthday celebration without the person whose birthday it was??? And not only that, I don’t like fish so if I had known that they weren’t coming then I wouldn’t have gone either! *running in circles of mad frustration*

Eh. At least the market was cool. It was huge and they were selling everything from giant shrimp to baby octopuses to crab and all sorts of live fish in tanks. The vendors would snag the one the customer pointed out and then kill it. It was rather barbaric but at least it was as close to being fresh as you could get it. And if you wanted to eat it right away, they would actually slice it into sashimi for you to take as To Go. Cool! It did stink to high heaven though. *gingerly pulling up my pant legs so they don’t drag in the shallow pools of water on the ground* I took lots and lots of pictures.

Dinner wasn’t too bad either. There is a restaurant of sorts, basically they charge you a fee for table space so you can enjoy what you bought at the fish market. For an additional fee they will prepare your food for you like steam the crab or make the fish into a stew along with providing beverages and side dishes. It was pretty neat! I don’t think they have restaurants like that in the States. We had four huge plates of sashimi followed by a fish stew. The relatives offered to buy me crab but I wasn’t all that hungry so I decided to pass. Overall, it was a fun evening!