An afternoon at the fish market

One of Busan's most famous attractions is the Jagalchi Fish Market.  At Jagalchi, you can see rows upon rows of vendors selling fresh seafood... fish, eel, shrimp, giant crab, octopus, you name it!  If you're lucky (or unlucky?) you can get to see them skinning live eels and chopping the heads off of fish.  It's disgusting but you just can't bring yourself to look away.

On our Jagalchi visit, we decided to do as many locals do, and partake in a seafood lunch upstairs above the market building.  I don't like seafood, but I went along with it just for the experience.  We met a friendly vendor who sold us an octopus and a fish.  She scooped them out of their tanks and placed them in a bucket, and then we were ushered upstairs.  We sat down on the floor, Korean-style, at a table and waited.  Not too much long after, our lunch was ready.  The fish had been transformed into sashimi, and the octopus was cut up, with the tentacles still moving on the plate.

Before

After...

I've tried the moving octopus tentacles before when I lived in Korea, and it was not the most pleasant thing to eat.  They still move around in your mouth and the little suction cups on the tentacles stick to your tongue and teeth, but you just chew and swallow.  I never thought I would ever eat it again (let alone voluntarily) but I guess sometimes you just have to live by that saying "when in Rome, do as the Romans do..."  Oh well!  "When in Busan..."