Live octopus is easier than smelt

The Monday after our temple stay we went to meet up with Shannon and Ryan in Nampo Dong, a big shopping area near Jagalchi fish market. To the left is what we found there. A lady and her look-a-like dog. Yes, that dog's wearing socks as well as shoes. And pants. And a jacket.

We wandered and wondered for a while before coming to the point of it all, which was sashimi (called hoe pronounced hway in S. Korea) dinner at Jagalchi. Brian and I had experienced this delight once before, but we had a new mission. Find the best of the Jagalchi restaurants, and eat a live octopus. San nakji is live baby octopus, though it's not really alive when you eat it. We found that the live smelt we ate in Inje was not very common and many Koreans were amazed or horrified that we'd done it. But san nakji is very popular.

Apparently, so is sea slug. They looked charred but maybe they were just dried out. That's them on the pink plate in the picture below.

It took us a lot of talking and even more tenacity, but eventually we found an ajumoni (endearing term for middle aged Korean woman) willing and able to grant our wishes. She was the first to bring out the little octopus with a knife instead of a plastic bag of water. She filled up a Styrofoam of spicy sauce and chopped the little guys legs into bite size bits and let us dig in. Behold.

Shannon's got some videos I'll post when I get them from her, for now just stills. It was squirmy wormy but much easier than the smelt, and more delicious I think. It's little suckers were so small though that when it grabbed your cheek or tongue it felt like you were being poked rather than pulled. All the other ajumonis were peeking out of their stalls and shouting questions to the lucky chosen one. Where are they from? Do they like it? It isn't too spicy for them? No ma'am, it's perfect. Our ajumoni even threw in a few raw oysters "service!" (that means free).

We found a sea monster octopus downstairs before dinner as well. It was enormous and the lady kept trying to get us to grab the poor thing's legs. Look at the size of those suckers! She also handed Shannon and Ryan a hapless little friend to hold.

Upstairs we were also success. It's hard to say if we found the best restaurant, but it was more and better food than the place we'd tried with David and Duck, and it was 10 bucks cheaper to boot. Below is the Jagalchi restaurant symbol. I'd say the ajumoni is amazingly accurate, but I doubt the fish are so happy. An aside: it's really common to have the food animal that a restaurant serves as a mascot for the place, usually all smiles to be your dinner. But in the US I think every attempt is made to ignore the fact that what you're eating is an animal. Strange cultural difference resulting in cute signs in Korea.

The spread our lady served was fantastic and I got her card and she memorized my name so I could call and make reservations when Mom and Frank get here. Only 3 more days!
Great job.

Jess

A Rebutal! and our temple stay

First of all, I'd like to back up and say that shortly after the video from the arm wrestler post Mi Yeon and I wrestled with our left arms (her "strong arm") and I won. And I want a rematch now that Brian and I have been pumping kilos in the gym. Incidentally, our gym is called city sports, but in Korean an s sound followed by an i sound always makes a shi sound. So naturally, we work out at shity sports.

But aside from all this, last weekend Ryan and Shannon suggested a temple stay in nearby Gyeongju, the old Shilla Dynasty capital of S. Korea. David and Duck opted out but Brian and I were excited to go, so early Saturday morning we all hopped a bus to another bus to Golgulsa (sa means temple), which is the headquarters for sunmudo. Sunmudo is a martial art one monk told us was developed in India at the very beginning of Buddhism. It is an "active meditation" meaning that it's a tool for enlightenment rather than a tool to defend yourself. It focuses on breathing as well as intensely controlled movements and it's beautiful to see in action.

We got to try it out on our first day there, but the second session and the demonstration from the monks were cancelled due to rain on the second day.

So our first day at the temple was lovely but cold. When we arrived it was lunch time, so we headed into the dining hall where Shannon and I had to sit with the women and the guys with their fellows. We had plenty of time to talk and wander around together between activities, but within any temple structure we weren't to "associate". So we associated as much as possible while exploring the temple grounds after lunch.

We found this happy little guy guarding the watering hole.

The higher we climbed the more charming the characters we found.

A little higher and things started turning a bit more stately.

And regal.

Til the crowning glory at the top. This rock carving that supposedly happened in the 700s. It was beautiful and had a commanding view of the temple grounds. Check it out further down.

Then it was time for archery. We headed over to the Sunmudo center where archery was to happen in time to catch the tail end of a game (can never remember it's name) of foot volleyball between 4 monks. In foot volleyball you have a regular volleyball net and 2 or more players per team. The ball can bounce once between each kick, but a person can only kick it once. It's amazing to see them spike it. Then it was time for archery, which at Golgulsa is also a meditation. We all got pretty good, but it was really cold in the shade where we had to stand and I was glad when it was over.

After some more downtime (spent warming up in our separate girls and guys quarters) it was sunmudo training or bust. There we heard chants to Buddha and learned the proper way to bow to Buddha along with our kicks and hand meditations. It was fun and hard and beautiful to watch the monks who were perfectly amazing at it. And then it was bedtime because morning comes early at a temple. 4 Am early, and the penalty for missing 4:30 morning chants is 3,000 bows to Buddha.

The dormitory (girls on top floor, boys below)

So Shannon and I retired to our room. I've never loved the heated floor so much. There were no beds or even mats, just 2 blankets per person and a small pillow - traditional Korean style, plus an added dose of minimalism for the temple. And our room had paper doors, also traditional. I was amazed at how warm we stayed though, slept like a baby. It was especially nice during Sunday's downtimes when it was cold and drizzly outside and you could hear the rain so nicely through the paper.

At 4 AM as promised we were awakened by a monk with a booming voice and a wooden gong walking by our paper doors chanting and gonging. I'm not typically a morning person, but I was excited to wake up that way, and we were off to morning chants, morning meditation (cold!), and then a short walking meditation up on a hill where the sky was just starting to glow red with the beginnings of dawn. It was cold and quiet and peaceful. Below is where we did walking meditation, only it was dark then.

From there we were on to the mess hall for Baroogongyang, a ceremonial meditative meal.

Baroogongyang has a protocol not only for eating, but for the setting and cleaning of the dishes as well. Eating, between bites you put down your chopsticks and chew slowly and mindfully each bite. However, this was a shortened version for laymen to experience, so it was quickened. Ryan and I were the last ones finished cleaning up with the kimchi because we took it to heart when they said chew slowly. I had to speed eat the last bit of my meal to come in last place while everyone waited for us to finish. Oops.

I forgot to mention the other selling feature of Golgulsa, it has the only cave temple in all of S. Korea. That's where the monk that chanted us awake started out and marched on down from there. Here are some pictures of that lovely spot.

Temple entrance above and altar below.

Buddhas in the wall of the cave temple.

Then, somewhere around 6:30 AM, it was naptime. Then at 8:30, tea time with Q & A with one of the monks! He told us about sunmudo and how he became a monk. Then many of the questions came our way being amongst the only foreigners there. Everyone wanted to know how we found out about Golgulsa, what we thought about sitting on the ground, if we knew about Korean traditional dance and so on.

After tea time there's usually community service, but at that temple it's usually gardening, and it was February, so more downtime. Eventually it was lunch time again and time to go home because most of the daily activities were cancelled due to the rain. But here are some photos of where it would have happened.

Above is the view from the Buddha rock carving of the main temple hall where we meditated and had morning chants, and where the sunmudo demonstration would have happened.

Fighting monk murals.

We were sad to miss a lot of the second day, but happy we'd come to Golgulsa. We'll just have to go back sometime. Sometime warmer. We had to get all bundled up as we waited for the bus back home, but we were all smiles too. Great job Golgulsa!