The Here and Now

Last night I went to dinner with one of my more adventurous friends. We found a remote little crowded restaurant with fish tanks outside, low tables, and no chairs.

It is interesting to note that sitting on the floor is a unique and fun thing to do in a foreign country. It makes you feel part of the culture. Like a local.
A least for the first 30 minutes.

After that your feet fall asleep, your tushy starts to hurt, and you really want to lean back on something.
Plus, those little cushions are not nearly as thick as one would hope for.

Also, there was no one there with the slightest command for the English language.
The menu was only in Korean.

This is my kind of place.

There was no way to know what this restaurant served* or how to order what we wanted.

So we did the most logical thing we could think of, pointed to the fish tank indicating that we wanted something with squid in it and drew pictures of mussels.
Ordering has never been so easy.

The problem with our point and draw technique soon became apparent.

Our food was brought quickly.
Too quickly.
So quickly, in fact, you have to wonder how it was cooked.

It wasn’t.

Before us was a plate piled high of squid, tenicales and all.
Very fresh.
Perfectly raw.

So fresh in fact (if you know where this is going feel free to stop reading now) it was still moving.
Tiny tenicals twisting on my plate.

Suction cups attaching themselves to our chopsticks.
Fleshy parts wiggling with every prod and poke.

So yummy.
With hot sauce.

*Aside, of course, for the tanks of what would be dinner.