After shivering up an appetite, I headed to the Insadong tourist area from a nice warm meal. The itinerary said I was to eat a Vegetarian meal which made me very happy. Last night's exotic seafood extravaganza just about did me in.
The restaurant was lovely traditional Korean house with rice paper walls that looked much like Mr Miagi's home from the Karate Kid movies.
It ended up being the much nicer meal that I had hoped for. Four courses of the most artistic vegetable plates came out one after another. They were almost too pretty to eat.
I'm not used to fine dining but it was fun to have a moment in the extravagant world….until I got the bill. Usually it's alcohol that puts a hurt on my wallet, but in this case it was those darn baby Asparagus!
I've never been a fighter but today's mission was to learn how to kick butt! Everybody has heard of Taekwondo, but there's another martial art from Korea that not many people have heard called Taekgyen.
I found myself on the side of a mountain once again, but this time not to meditate with monks. Maximilian Jang and his student Chad (from New Jersey but lives in Korea) met me for a quick lesson on a snowy hilltop.
Today was -17 Celsius and Seoul hasn't had temperatures this low in about 100 years, lucky me! It's the perfect temperature for getting tossed into the snow and feeling like your bones are gonna shatter.
Taekgyen is based on kicking; Jang explained to me that Koreans are the best kickers in the world because throughout time they have worn baggy clothing, which allows for a wide range of motion. Back in the day it was an entire country of people sporting MC Hammer pants!
My favorite part of the training was learning how to yell out TEK! and then exhaling…HAAA! Tek! Ha! Tek Ha! Tek Ha! I'm good at being loud, this could work for me.
The history of the art is fascinating; Taekgyen was an ancient form of fighting for hundreds of years until the Japanese invasion. They outlawed the practice and killed off most of the masters. The art was almost completely lost until one man found the sole living master and learned from him, at the age of 93. It's still miniscule in the world of martial arts but their hope is to slowly spread the sport.
Watch this amazing video to see the beauty of this martial art; it looks kinda like Crouching Tiger without the flying on rooftops.
This evening's dinner was, well, I have no polite way to say this so I'll just say it, disgusting! Sang in wanted me to try something crazy so he ordered up a platter of Sting Ray. The plate looked appetizing enough with pretty rows of small pink chunks lined up like sushi. The smell however was horrific! I gagged as I put the meat to my nose; it smelled of pure ammonia and reminded me of lawn fertilizer. After 1.7 seconds in my mouth I knew I was in trouble. The crunchy bones made me want to gag and the tough, gummy meat was almost impossible to force down.
It didn't help that Sang in and Lee were laughing their asses off while I squirmed around in my seat. I'm not a quitter though and finally swallowed it. I quickly washed it down with some Makgeoli (rice wine) and was once again a happy boy.
It brought great joy to my face when Sang in went through the same uncomfortable procedure when he put this wretched food into his mouth. HA HA!
Now it was onto something more civilized, a harmless pancake. Or at least I thought it was harmless until I found bits of Squid tentacle in my dough. It wasn't bad though, a thousand times more edible than Sting Ray.
On my way out the door the waiter chased me down with a spray bottle. It totally caught off guard but it turns out it was just Febreeze. He was just masking my fishy smell so I wouldn't pollute the clean air of Seoul. Maybe I should do this with all my clothes from now on...it would save a trip to the laundry mat
The museum also has a hands on learning center and I was put to work making rice wine. This all-natural alcohol is made from rice, water and yeast, simple! After mixing all the ingredients together for about 30 minutes I poured it into a jug and called it a day. Unfortunately, it takes a week to ferment so I couldn't try my tasty concoction. I also just heard that airlines have now banned rice wine jugs on all airplanes so I left it with Sang in. Next week he can get drunk and think of me.
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