Fine Whine With My Meal(s): Korea Day Four

Day Four: Lunch of the Living Dead/The Science of Bathroom-ology

As the tears drop sideways down her face/
I end up talking in the tongue of a different race/
And as the flight touches down, my watch says 8:02/
but that's midnight to you.

Well, Graham was really singing about Japan, and conflating Japan and Korea is a very bad thing in these parts. But until someone writes the definitive song on jet lag, "Discovering Japan" is as close as you're going to get.

I dreamed headlong collisions in jetlag panavision/
I shouted 'sayanara', it didn't mean goodbye/
But lovers turn to posers, show up in film exposures/
Just like in travel brochures discovering Japan

Thank God for the iPod.

SIR JOHN CRAPPER WOULD ROTATE

Today was really all about eating, but let's begin with a loose end (gak!) from yesterday's discussion of the Korean home - Korean Bathrooms.

They are different. Here is a nifty picture:



Notice that in this one there is a shower curtain rod (unusual) and no shower curtain (completely standard). There is a drain on the bathroom floor and water is expected to splash out of the shower and exit from the drain. I presume this is some echo of the public bath-house but I'm much to modest to check that out. ;-) This means the bathroom floor is wet much of the time and right inside every Korean bathroom there is a pair of plastic slippers so you can go to the bathroom or use the sink and mirror without soaking your feet. In a nice bathroom such as the one pictured, there is a platform of some sort at the base of the toilet as well as one by the tub. These allow you to stand, magisterial, above the muck. The bathroom floor, needless to say, is depressed from the rest of the household floor and there is a sturdy doorjamb to ensure that no water escapes into the rest of the house. On the outside of the bathroom door is a mat with a towel so you can dry your feet on the way out if you showered or if your feet got wet.

Which brings us to towels. That thing you see (if you squint) hanging by the sink is a shower towel. Korean towels are slightly larger than washcloths and particularly prized for their skimpy weave and near complete inability to absorb water. Thus they require vigorous use, some contortion, and time, to be useful. When they are useful, it is primarily as exercise and by the time you have dried the shower water you will be soaked in sweat and the showering process must begin again.

Well, that's the Yang way and probably explains why most Korean stores don't sell deodorant. They don't have to. Koreans don't smell bad when they sweat. The ones who did ended up dying of exhaustion in their bathrooms.

Darwin rules.

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Had my third traditional Korean breakfast today, this one at Ed's parent's house. I took a picture because even the table looks like nothing western. It's about 10 inches high, since you eat sitting on the floor. And it is covered in food. This one featured a rib-sticking rice dish, a fried(?) fish and a variety of vegetable matter (prominently featuring Kim-chee, of course).



Ed's dad sat down, looked over the whole array then looked at me and asked if I wanted Soju. I sat, shocked ....... shocked I tell you, that my reputation as an international drunkard had crossed the line from the Occidental to the Oriental nations. I demurred.

Later I asked Ed if that was a normal breakfast question. He predictably replied that it "was a Korean tradition" and then began randomly pointing out objects around the room and claiming that they warded off bad luck and evil spirits. But Ed says stuff like that and when he tripped on a Korean throw rug on his way to the bathroom, he stopped that chatter for a bit.

It was a good breakfast but it still doesn't stack up to the mushroom and beef porridge of two days ago.

And as good as all the breafasts have been, when I get to breakfast that first morning at the Imperial Palace hotel and the obsequious (and with the money I'm paying they damned well better be obsequious!) staff asks me what I want for breakfast?

Omelette, pancakes, mimosa.

Rinse with a coffee and repeat.

LUNCH WITH THE KLINGONS

Having survived a soup that featured the exploded entrails of a lamb liberally larded with the congealed blood of a pig, I was feeling pretty confident about my ability to navigate my way around the Korean table. Hell, the breakfasts had been a bit odd by my standards as well, but I'd had no trouble. Liked most of it in fact.

So, when it was finally time for lunch with Mr. Park I was feeling pretty good. And when he said he was driving us down to the coastal town of Anmunjon I felt even better. Nothing like a meal in the bracing sea air. And it was actually quite a scenic spot, sort of like Moss Landing in California.



We walked into a nice clean place that had a view of part of the bay and sat on the floor. Mr. Park ordered the "sushi special" and some Soju. The waitress quickly rolled over a two-trayed cart of dishes and started unloading.

Started unloading piles of things that would be used, in a country that possessed taste-buds, to attract sharks. Ah, but there it all was dolled up on the cute little plates they use in these parts. I dug in and ate all kinds of things I really hate. As it happens I have become quite a partisan of the red sauce Koreans use.

it covers up the taste of most everything, if not the texture.

We had put most of it away when a 5th diner arrived and new plates had to come to our table.

As I looked over the new array I worried I was becoming nauseous. At the edge of my vision I could see a plate that seemed to be crawling with something.

I took a shot of Soju.

Just to steady my vision.

And looked again.

The plate was still crawling.

20 disembodied tentacles crawled around on a plate.

More Soju.

Mr. Park took his chopstix (the difficult all-metal Korean type) and grabbed at one of the moving pieces. Well, it was moving, but it didn't want to go. It clung to the plate with all the sucker-plates it had. A war of wills ensued. But it would be a rare amputated bit of of sea-creature that could beat a South Korean in a contest of this type and after 15 seconds or so Mr. Park ate the damned thing.

I took another shot of Soju.

For once, it didn't help.

I flashed back to something I had read about people who ate octopus tentacles. Apparently ..... well not even apparently.. as I had seen.... the tentacles are still functional. And the tentacles can kill people by attaching to their throats and choking them to death.

By the time I came back to reality over half of the critters were gone and the remainder were clumped up on one corner of the plate apparently trying to reassemble themselves into something that could escape. Well, that one at the upper left of the photo tried to go over the wall solo, but the others huddled together in some futile gesture of support or defense.

And four Koreans were looking at me expectantly.

I snapped a photo in a lame attempt to stall:



This resistance was, as heroines in bodice-rippers often aver, to no avail.

Four Koreans were looking at me expectantly.

Faced with this adversity I steeled my nerve. I knew what I had to do.

I curled up in a ball and played dead.

When the waitress came across the floor at me with a filleting knife I gave up that charade.

I looked beseachingly at Ed.

Ed looked back sympathetically and snarled, "chew it to make sure it's really dead."

I ate one of the goddamned things. Perhaps the chewiest thing I have ever eaten it long outlasted whatever cover the red hot-sauce could give it.

I'll just note that tonight is the first night on this trip I've suffered any intestinal complaint. And while I believe that my little tentacular (ex)friend is currently beyond any attempt to escape?

It sure seems like he is.

Tomorrow promises fresh Hells. Market time.. perhaps some bookshopping. Even tea?

Who knows……