![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.craigpratsch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/P1020226.e.jpg\" "\\"sea")
<\/a><\/p>\nNaturally we wanted to see what the\u00a0commotion\u00a0was about, and as we approached, we saw booth after booth of women selling live sea creatures.<\/p>\n
We noted the sight and continued on our way. \u00a0As we walked around, we noticed that people seemed to be carrying baskets of food to the top floor of this building. \u00a0Intriguing. \u00a0As usual, we followed the crowd to the top floor and we found hundreds of people eating soup and fresh seafood. \u00a0We figured, people mush be buying the sea creatures below, bringing them up here, and eating! \u00a0Only if. Only if we could do that, how cool. \u00a0We discussed it, there seemed to be too many hurdles. \u00a0Figuring out what to eat, negotiating a price, somehow cleaning the fish (that was a big one), conveying to the people on the top floor of the building we wanted to eat what we brought, it seemed daunting. \u00a0We did one more loop around the building, trying to figure out how we might pull this off… there was no obvious solution to us. \u00a0It just seemed to complicated. \u00a0As we were walking away, a woman yelled out. “Hello! \u00a0Hello!” \u00a0We turned around, “You eat?” \u00a0she asked. \u00a0This woman became our savior.<\/p>\n “How much?” \u00a0The first\u00a0question\u00a0in most travel situations. \u00a0The woman grabbed a basket and dunked her hand into the tanks. \u00a0She pulled out four live shrimp, two squid, and about four other fish I can’t begin to describe.<\/p>\n “Twenty.” \u00a0She said. \u00a0“Twenty thousand?” \u00a0I wrote on my hand, a two followed by four zeros. She nodded yes… quick converstion calculation… about $18. \u00a0Deal! \u00a0We asked, “How do we cut?” \u00a0We mimed cutting the fish, she understood. \u00a0She\u00a0beckoned\u00a0us to the back of the store, revealing her worker bees.<\/p>\n These women cut and clean sea creatures all day (I keep saying sea creatures, because fish is just too limiting). \u00a0Perfect! \u00a0The woman handed us a menu, we looked at it… ok, ok. \u00a0These must be the topping\/side dishes. \u00a0Perfect! \u00a0We’ll take it. \u00a0We motioned to her… “Can you take us upstairs?” \u00a0We pointed up. \u00a0She nodded. \u00a0Of course she’ll help these tall helpless white giants. \u00a0So, the worker bees cleaned the\u00a0creatures, placing the parts onto a nice basket, the woman handed us our sides and she led us upstairs. \u00a0We sat down at a table, a waitress brought us water, but we noticed that other tables had soup and rice, we want that too. \u00a0We ordered by pointing (the norm). \u00a0Everyone nodded, ok, ok. \u00a0Things are working out. \u00a0We stared at the basket of fish parts (picture below). \u00a0The picture is tough to see, but in the left basket, the there are white fish parts and dark squid parts. \u00a0We ate the shrimp before I took the picture. Oops! \u00a0The right basket are the garnishes.<\/p>\n The next\u00a0dilemma\u00a0.. \u00a0I tried to ask, “Do we eat raw? \u00a0Or wait for soup?” \u00a0I couldn’t get this question across via mime. \u00a0At this point we were testing the woman’s patience. \u00a0She sighed and motioned for us to eat. \u00a0I picked up a shrimp, head and all, hmmmm. \u00a0The woman grabbed the shrimp from me, broke off the head and handed the body, legs, tail and all, back to me. \u00a0She motioned to eat. \u00a0I ate it. \u00a0It was crunchy. \u00a0She did the same for my brother. \u00a0OK. \u00a0Raw it is! \u00a0We smiled, nodded, gave her a thumbs up, and she nodded walked away. \u00a0We dug in! \u00a0The fish head soup came, we alternated eating the fish raw and dipping it in boiling water. \u00a0What a great meal.<\/p>\n After eating all the “good parts” that we bought downstairs, I ventured to eat the fish heads in the soup. \u00a0The fish heads were not bad. \u00a0It’s just that they had 1 trillion little bones inside and were about 20% skin:<\/p>\n Like I said, not bad, just exhausting to eat! \u00a0No wonder Asians are so skinny. \u00a0It’s exhausting to eat. \u00a0We finished up the soup,\u00a0drank\u00a0the broth and nodded. \u00a0That was really good and it worked out perfectly. \u00a0We got up, paid and left. \u00a0These are the experiences I love.<\/p>\n Then we got hamburgers, we were still hungry!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is what I love about travel. My brother and I were in the sleepy port town of Sokcho, South Korea, and we heard loud voices coming from this building: Naturally we wanted to see what the\u00a0commotion\u00a0was about, and as … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n