Raw fish and Stone Pagodas

I had one of the best weekends I've had yet in Korea. For some reason this weekend every experience I had was a new one and I saw a lot of new things. I ate raw fish this weekend, hiked a beautiful trail with some great people, saw Korean belly dancers, and walked through the fish market in Masan. I'm going to divide up my posts, since I have a lot to cover. I'll start with the raw fish and the stone pagodas today. And bring you the Korean belly dancers and the fish market tomorrow.

It all started Friday after work. I thought I was going to have an ordinary Friday night, doing dinner and then drinks at our favorite foreign bar, O'Briens. Instead, shortly after I got home Nolan called me and asked me if I wanted to hang out with Mr. Song. Mr. Song is Nolan's co-teacher.Don't let the goofy face fool you. He's super cool. Mr. Song treated us to dinner at this seafood place. I had my first taste of all sorts of raw fish here, and live octopus.

That's the octopus tentacles sitting on that platter in the middle. You can't see it in this picture but the tentacles were moving. It was hard to stomach at first. Really, I was just scared that once I popped one into my mouth it would stay sucked on to the inside of my mouth. Every time I went to pick one up with my chopsticks it would scuttle away. Once I tried the other fish, I made my way back to the octopus. This time I was determined to eat one. You're supposed to dunk each one in some soy sauce, wasabi, or the other red paste we had. I managed to pick up a squirmy piece and popped it into a my mouth. I chewed really fast, because I didn't want to feel it moving around inside my mouth. In all honesty, I have to say it wasn't bad at all. I'm pretty content eating seafood, even when it's raw. This was just a whole new level of raw. It was pretty chewy and a little slippery. All I want to say is, don't knock it 'till you've tried it.
This was our entire table. Covered with all sorts of sea creatures. This was a really big dinner. Before all the food that you see on this table, the waitress brought out a whole other batch of starters like kimbap, sweet potatoes, and pajeon (my favorite).
This is just another picture of one of the many types of raw fish on our table. I really had fun at dinner with Mr. Song. He was the perfect person to take to this restaurant. He explained what each thing was, and how to eat the dishes properly. We wouldn't even know what to order had we gone by ourselves.

Saturday, I was out the door by 12:30 to meet with Ryan, Zoe, and Nolan. Our destination was Paryongsan. It's the site of 883 free standing stone pagodas. One man has spent the past thirteen years building these pagodas. His goal is to build 1,000 pagodas in total. The pagodas were built as a symbol of reunification of families that have been split up between North Korea and South Korea.
We hiked up the mountain and started seeing smatterings of pagodas here and there. The higher we trekked the more we saw. It's amazing that they are just freestanding, and we were all thinking about how neat it is that no one has come and knocked them all over.Zoe and I are just standing in awe of what's right before us.The site was amazing to see in person. Especially when you think about all the effort one man has put forth to make these pagodas.

This last picture was taken by a nice Korean woman who was hiking along the trail. I had the most amazing time with these three people. And the good news was the day wasn't even over yet.

That's Nolan, me, Ryan, and Zoe. Stopping to document this hike. Once we went passed all the pagodas, we reached this quiet rest area. We sat there for a long time talking about the comforts of home, the food we missed, and how freaking amazing this place with all these pagodas was.


The fish market and belly dancers will follow shortly.