Reasons why I should have a camera on me at all times...

1) A week ago, I was walking down the street and noticed a second-hand clothing store with a rack of jackets outside the door. The PNU area offers a lot of window-shopping opportunities, and at this point it takes an awfully-bizarre piece of apparel to make me rubberneck. On this rack though was a black pin-striped windbreaker with a Dumbo-like smiling elephant and the words "Black Gangs" stitched above it. Without a photo, you'll just have to take my word.

2) Last night, I took a group of four students that I'm helping prepare to enter Asia Pacific University out for dinner. They had finished all of their application materials, and I figured it would be a good way to celebrate and boost morale, since we still have interviews to work on.

(Understand, by the way, that high school students in Korea have among the most arduous schedules in the world (they start school at 7:00 AM and leave at 10:00 PM); as much as I was taking them out because I was proud of them, it also had a lot to do with sympathy.)

(Also understand that teachers can take a group of students out to dinner here without having to worry about how that could be misinterpreted as me being lecherous scum.)

So we went to a seomgyeopsol buffet a few blocks down from the school. For 5000 won a person, we were able to feast on an unlimited supply of 'fresh' meat, gimchi, garlic, veggies, and fresh baby octopus. I've been there before, and I've always avoided eating the octopus, but the students (also not very interested in the tentacled cuties) and I thought it would be fun to play a game that involved potentially eating the parts of one. I'll explain the game we played ("Catch a Mouse", made popular on one of the 800 talk shows that rule the airwaves here) another day, but needless to say, I lost a few times.

The octopus was not filleted or anything like that; seafood here is normally just delivered whole-bodied, so as not to mask the true identity of what you're eating. To cook, we just threw the guys on the grill in the center of our table, cutting off a few legs from the torsos and for the game, chopping a few heads off and placing them in a row on a plate. The first time I lost I didn't take that much time to question whether or not I could stand eating the noggin; I poured some water as a chaser, picked it up with my chopsticks, and chowed down. Seom, the most boisterous of the kids, demanded that I chew at least five times, so I followed her orders. Its head reminded me of a hard-boiled egg-- rubbery on the outside, but on breaking the outer layer, a mixture of creamy and flaky. According to the kids, my face was contorting in a way they've never seen, but after I downed it with some water, I decided eating the head wasn't all that bad. I had one more head and a few arms that night, and I managed to make it out alive.

I figure now the next step is to go to Jagalchi fish market and eat some live eel; I'll keep you posted.