On Saturday we ventured into Seoul to visit the Noryangjin fish market and see the cherry blossoms on Yeouido island. I had hoped that we could rent bikes and ride them around the island - through the cherry trees and the other parks and then along the river - but the weather was quite nice and, unfortunately, the air quality was very poor. Spring is yellow dust season (Hwangsa), a sand storm (plus random germs and toxins and heavy metals) that originates in the Gobi desert and is blown across China to Korea, Japan, and sometimes even reaching the U.S. On rainy days, the dust is subdued and the air quality is quite good.... but who wants to go walking in the rain? On beautiful days, the dust becomes quite irritating. Because of this, we nixed our plan of renting bikes and, since I've had allergic reactions and both of us have gotten sick because of the yellow dust, we also brought out our masks: a surgical blue one for Jay (although he didn't wear it much), and an oh-so-chic scarf-mask ensemble for me:
I am ninja.
So we boarded a subway train and got off at Noryangjin, the station name as well as the name of the fish market. After some confusion, we found the walkway to the fish market (housed in a huge warehouse) an went down the stairs. Along the steps, two women were selling produce in a miniature market. I suppose, if you need any accompaniment to your fish, this would be an optimal place to purchase it. We continued down the stairs and came out on an extended balcony that stretched the entire length of the warehouse. We were one floor above the actual market, able to look down at the stands below or enter one of the many restaurants that made use of the readily available fresh fish. Here are some of the things we saw:
Many different stalls - the warehouse stretched out a long way in both directions and there were many rows of venders stretching back into the warehouse.
Live crabs in many varieties. In buckets. Crawling around. Some upside down so that prospective buyers could poke their legs to pick out the best one.
Various shellfish, octopi, squid, stingrays(?) and random creatures.
Here are a bunch of live fish and a man preparing fresh sashimi right there.
Plates of fresh sashimi ready to eat - the large plates cost about 15,000 won (15 dollars) and the smaller ones cost 10,000 won. We bought a smaller plate of this type of fish and a tiny plate of an eel-like sashimi and took them with us to Yeouido island, just across the freeway, to eat for lunch.
Although we could see the island if we walked outside of the warehouse, we couldn't cross the freeway to get to it, so we actually had to take the subway one station west to get to the island. We got out and walked a short distance to a park with many benches where we had our feast.
Both plates of fish came with a peppery dipping sauce, which (although quite different from soy sauce) was delicious. We purchased toothpicks near the subway station and that's how we had our lunch.
After lunch, we explored the park and made our way to the 63 building, the largest building in Korea.
We would have liked to view Seoul from the top, but the visibility was bad due to the yellow dust, so we will simply have to return on a clearer day. Here is a list of the attractions in the building.
As you can see, it's actually only 60 stories high, with 3 basement floors, so I'm not sure it counts as having 63 floors, but oh well. The popular areas were the Sky Deck (view from the top), Seaworld, and the IMAX. Since we weren't interested in a movie, couldn't see much from the sky deck, and had had a surreal experience at the last aquarium we'd visited, we pretty much walked around the main floor for a bit and then headed back out. Though please note that the diagram is titled "Your Special Story" at the top. How sweet.
Outside was a cool statue and a lovely blue fountain - it matched my ninja outfit!
We made our way north a bit to the park along the Han river where people could hang out on the grass or bike along the bike paths or rent a boat (shaped like a swan). Just in case of an accident, there was a life vest and multilingual instructions.
And of course this was an opportune time to take photos in front of the 63 building.... Unfortunately, Jay is not too familiar with the lighting settings on his camera (which is exactly what I was thinking as this photo was taken, but Jay seems to be amused by it).
After sitting for a while in the park, we walked along the river towards the cherry blossom park. On the way, we saw a soccer game and, randomly, men sweeping in a construction site. Um... It's going to get dirty again when you move those bulldozers, but okay... Additionally, we could see the fish market from this side of the freeway.
Finally, we reached the cherry blossom park, a street lined with cherry trees that span about half of the island. They only are in bloom for a few weeks out of the year, so we were lucky to be able to see them. Here you can see some of the nearby skyscrapers through the branches, other walkers enjoying the park, and the blossoms themselves...
We made our way back to the subway station through the cherry trees (although, truth be told, we were quite distracted by all the pretty flowers). We returned to the fish market for dinner. Although you can select your own fish - live or otherwise - and bring it up to one of the restaurants for them to prepare it, we weren't feeling that adventurous (or aware of what the different fish tasted like), so we just entered a Japanese restaurant with some very sweet women who had been amused by our gawking that morning. We sat down and, upon noting that we had not brought our own fish, they provided us with a menu (with English!). Some of the options were sashimi, fish hotpot, live baby octopus, and crab. We couldn't choose what we wanted and didn't feel up to live baby octopus, so we ordered a set menu for two - 30,000 won each. We thought it was overpriced, but figured we'd try it anyway.
We were so wrong. First came the side dishes: porridge, steamed mussels, edamame, tiny eggs, various types of seaweed, salads, delicious sweet turnip-like chunks, tofu, and some unidentifiable fish. Then they brought us a plate of shellfish: raw oysters, baked shellfish, fish eggs, and a strange bulbous orange thing that I would not recommend to anyone ever. It tasted a bit like a cross between fish and papaya. Not in a good way, but it was interesting and the shellfish was amazing. Next came a broiled fish and a baked corn dish... and then sashimi... At this point we'd decided that the meal was certainly not overpriced and we were running out of room in our stomachs, not to mention the table, which we had to rearrange because soon the waitress came back with a smoked salmon salad, another type of sashimi, and shrimp and carrot and potato tempura.
We started to panic every time she walked in our direction, wondering if this was all just the appetizer. For my part, I munched on edamame while trying to figure out how to fit the rest of the food into my stomach without necessitating an operation.
And then they brought the rolls. I suppose that the look of terror on our face tipped the waitress off, so she asked if we wanted the soup as well. We frantically said no, and worked on finishing what we could before getting up and waddling over to pay for our dinner.
The food was truly amazing and I wish we could have gone with empty stomachs after a long hike... One group behind us actually purchased a live crab and brought it in - the restaurant provided them with side dishes and cooked up the crab, whole, and brought it to their table with the tools to demolish it as they saw fit.
The cherry blossoms were lovely, but we were most impressed by the fish market. How we have survived without knowing of it's existence is beyond me, but we hope to return at least twice more before we leave - once for the crab, and once for the live baby octopus. I mean, you have to try that sort of thing when it's available, right? Jay will certainly take videos if/when it happens. Until then, back to Ilsan. I leave you with two videos: the first is an overview of the fish market from the small walkway upstairs and the second is a video of a man preparing fresh sashimi. Enjoy!
