I've wanted to do this since I heard about it during my last trip to Korea. The hostess brought in a bowl with three small, live octopi and one at a time wrapped them tightly around chopsticks and fed one to each of us. The strangest feeling is when the octopus is sucking at the sides of your mouth with its tentacles - yes, you can feel it!! After it is dead, it's still quite challenging because it's really difficult to tear it into smaller pieces so you can actually swallow.
After the live octopus, it was time for the main course: A very spicy vegetable soup with octopus. If you don't like watching things die, don't watch the following movie:
I made it out of the city on Sunday for a couple days of hiking at a national park here in Korea. It's on the Eastern coast and near the border with North Korea, near the coastal city of Sokcho. Sunday was crazy packed with people (imagine if Yosemite was less than 3 hours from SF and was 1/100th the size), but I had a half day, so I did the "must do" hike to some rocks called Ulsanbawi. Crowded, but very beautiful anyway.
Looking over the map, I decided to tackle a 22 km hike that hits the 3 highest peaks in park (1708 meters is the highest) and ended on the other side of the park. When I discussed this with the hotel owners' father (great guy who lived in LA's Korea Town for a long time), he said "start early."
So, Monday morning I walked out of the hotel at 6am and started towards the park in darkness. By 8 am I had made it over 6 km and enjoyed the sunrise at a Buddhist cave that had been carved in the side of a mountain (and bought a bandanna because (a) I really needed something that would work as belt for my pants and (b) it had a map on it and I left my map at the hotel).
I thought I was making great time and would reach Mt. Daecheongbong much earlier than expected...I was wrong. The trail got really steep - both up and down - and seemed like a mix of hiking and rock climbing. I averaged 2 km/hr (not including breaks) the rest of the day. Koreans don't do switchbacks!
All in all, though I had a good time. Lots of other hikers on the trail once I got to an area where there are a few "lodgings" and people were backpacking and later when I was near the park entrances near to the peak.
I posted a bunch of pictures on Picassa - I hope you enjoy them!
After searching for a home for 3 weeks and our neighbors reaching wits end with his relentless crowing, we finally had to say goodbye. My mom came down on Saturday for a fun day hanging out and then she took him away. Today she brought him back to the feedstore we purchased him from and they guaranteed that they would be able to re-sell him. To Mike's chagrin, no chicken dinner. Hopefully Mr. Pegs finds some green pastures to play (and crow) in!!
My month and a half off from this old blog is primarily due to the start of school. So I am going to apologize for all my tardy posts of recent and those to come!
I am teaching 80% this year, only 4 classes, but with larger class sizes due to budget cuts I only have about 10 fewer kids! I guess this is better than having 25 more kids though!
I am enjoying another season of coaching volleyball (we just took 2nd at a tournament today!). The girls are a lot of fun, but I'll definitely be glad for November to roll around and the season to be done. I'll be getting home by 2pm!!
Mike started his 2nd year as a Post-doc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. For the month of September he has been working down at the Sandia National Lab in Livermore - so we've been commuting together!! At the end of October he'll be making another trip to Korea to give some talks and renew all of his paperwork for his funding.
Other Mikey news...he is running again! He finally got his hip rehabilitated and he is as active as ever, even searching out triathalons to sign up for.
Finally, the chickens! They are getting big and fat - and will be laying eggs soon...hopefully!! Caleb and Andy, we are trying to get a good video of them using their ladder - the only problem is that they only use it at night to go up to their brooding house, so all our videos are coming out too dark. We'll let you know if we get it though!
Recently some of our friends thought it would be fun to all go golfing. Needless to say I am barely the mini-golf type, so the thought seemed somewhat not fun. Mike decided that if I had the opportunity to hit the ball really hard, that I would probably like it - so he took me to the driving range... Now I assume that my natural talent in so many other sports Mike has converted me to, perhaps jaded his perception of the reality of me and golf. I am no good. I couldn't hardly hit any of the balls forward, let alone up and with any distance to get that thrill of smacking it really hard! I think more often than not I completely missed the ball!
Anyway, a few days later we were at a 9-hole Executive course, which was supposed to make me feel better because they were all super short (70-120 yds, I think). I used a Pitching Wedge and my putter the whole day - and once I had the glory of par - but it was primarily luck that I hit the ball on my drive!
Sadly no pictures or, better yet, video clips of the whole ordeal. I'm sure you would have loved to see me whiff all my drives!!
I've wanted to do this since I heard about it during my last trip to Korea. The hostess brought in a bowl with three small, live octopi and one at a time wrapped them tightly around chopsticks and fed one to each of us. The strangest feeling is when the octopus is sucking at the sides of your mouth with its tentacles - yes, you can feel it!! After it is dead, it's still quite challenging because it's really difficult to tear it into smaller pieces so you can actually swallow.
