Jagalchi Fish Market...

Over the weekend I visited the Jagalchi Market about 3 times and each time I found something new to marvel at. Jagalchi is the largest open air fish market in Korea and is divided into sections for shellfish, live fish, and a big section for dried fish. You could literally spend all day walking around and not see everything, that's why I came back 3 times. There were fish and sea creatures being sold that I have never even heard of before. And some that I questioned would actually be edible. The "ajummas" that work the market and sell their catch are one tough breed. They have been working at Jagalchi since they were little and they are unbelievably precise with their knives. When someone would buy a fish, the ajummas would clean the fish immediately for them. It was amazing to watch them clean the fish and somehow keep the fish alive to make sure it stays as fresh as possible. I watched one lady behead and skin a bucket of eels and was shocked when the eels were still wriggling as if they were still whole. I was always told that a picture is worth a thousand words so hopefully the pictures below will do some justice to how wonderful Jagalchi is.

On Saturday, I met two friends from orientation at the market for dinner. There are hundreds of restaurants in the market that serve the freshest fish imaginable. We chose a restaurant that required us to cook our fish at the table on a little ceramic grill. This is a very popular way to dine in Korea so we thought it would make for a good experience. Since none of us speak or read Korean very well, we had to resort to the old point and pray method of ordering. So, we pointed to a picture that looked appetizing, and prayed that what we received was the same as the picture. I guess we didn't pray hard enough because we were brought two freshly killed eel looking fish that were still squirming on the plate. Like I said earlier, its all about the freshness. Once I got past the fact that the fish heads were looking at me with their mouths moving up and down and the tails trying to wriggle off the plate, the fish was actually really good. We polished off most of it with the exception of the backbones, the head (I ate the eyes, which are supposed to be good for your health) and the tails.