How to Eat Fried Worms

Last weekend, my boss took me and two other foreign teachers to Nagan Folk Village.  I had been before but the two other foreigners’ hadn’t.  The folk village is a village with traditional houses, no electricity or technology, and people still live there.  Tourists are invited to walk around the village and buy things that the village people sell – food, crafts, pottery, etc…

One of the “foods” they sell is toasted worms.  They look disgusting and they smell disgusting.  One of the foreign teachers prides himself on his openness to trying new foods.  So he bought a cup of the bugs…worms…whatever.  As he ate one I observed his unflinched reaction and decided maybe they didn’t taste too bad.

“Should I try one?” I pondered.

“Yeah, try it.” Robby steadily replied.

We were standing right in front of the woman that sold us the worms.  I put one in my mouth, bit down and then went “BLEEEHHHH!!!” and spit it out right in front of her.  (How embarrassing!  Dumb foreigners.) 

“That was disgusting!!  The most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted!!.”  I perplexedly yelled to Robby. 

“Yeah me too,” said Robby.  “Sorry I didn’t warn you how bad it was.”

“Sorry?  You’re sorry??  My palate is scarred for life, and you’re sorry??  Buy me a new tongue.”

Robby gave the cup of worms to our boss and told her to give the worms back to the woman who sold them to us; he didn’t want them.  This is why people hate America (in case you ever wonder.)

So we tried to chew gum to get the taste out of our mouths but then the gum started to taste like worms.  It didn’t work.  As we walked around the village, whenever we passed someone cooking the worms and caught a whiff of the smell we could taste the worms again in our mouth.  It was revolting, not to mention nauseating.

Anyway, for anyone who ever feels the urge to taste a worm let me tell you: what you imagine a worm tastes like, that’s EXACTLY what it tastes like.

Desperate times....

I just did something ridiculous.

I was walking my dog this morning and I didn't bring my house key because I thought my roommates knew I'd be back in 20 minutes.  I got back and the door was locked.  I had no key, no phone, and no money.  Just an anxious and confused dog.

I started banging on the door hoping my other roommate was home and was just sleeping.  I had no luck.  At the prospect of sitting on my stoop for hours and hours I decided to try to figure out a way in.

I live on the fourth floor.  At first I went down to the lower floors to see if I could find a ladder.  We have a porch you see, and I thought maybe I could climb up.  No ladder.

Next I climbed up to the roof and I looked down to my porch.  I was hoping maybe there was some way I could shimmy down.  But there was no such way, I'd just have to jump straight down and it looked too high, so I decided to nix the idea.

After 20 more minutes of sitting on my stoop I decided I could take no more of it and I went back to the roof.  I looked down to my porch again and that time it didn't seem too high.  Still, I thought I might break an ankle or something.  I started to look around the roof and I saw all of these cushions from old sofas that were sitting on the roof. This gave me an idea.

I started throwing the cushions down onto my porch in a pile.  Eventually, I got a bunch of cushions to land in one place.  I looked down and I thought "if I go for this, there's no turning back."

I climbed off the ledge and got myself hanging my my fingertips dangling above the cushions.  This is when I decided that this was a terrible idea an that I should turn back.  But it was too late, I couldn't retract myself with my fingertips.  So I did the only thing I could do; I let go. 

And I survived!  I got the wind knocked out of me and I'm still shaking.  But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

A Korean New Years

I think I win for most sporadically-ridiculous New Year’s.Eve of 2012.

A few weeks ago, my boss introduced me to her friend Soon Min, the guy whom with I went virtually golfing.  Since then, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to observe and experience how hilarious and insane this dude is.

After golf that night he drove me home and said we should go skiing next time.  So I said yes, let’s go sometime after May’s wedding.  Now when you tell a Korean “after” in any context they will take it to mean IMMEDIATELY after.  So right after May’s wedding Christmas Eve, we went night skiing at a place three hours outside Yeosu.

I assure you that much hilarity ensued on our ski trip, but I’d rather get to New Year’s Eve.  While skiing I mentioned that I wanted (at some point) to see Mission Impossible 4.  Soon Min said he did too and the next day after we had gone skiing until 5am he called and was like “Mission Impossible today?”  And Meg and I were like, “…how about another time, Soon Min.”

That other time ended up being New Year’s Eve.  We saw Mission Impossible* (I love Tom Cruise!!) and then we went to eat live, pry-them-open-and-cut-them-out, oysters.  I don’t think I’ve ever had oysters before but I still feel confident in saying oysters don’t get better than this. 

Now, Soon Min, is a very “need to take care of you/you’re a woman therefore you need help) kind of guy.  For example, I had developed my own method of opening the oysters but Soon Min just kept shaking his head and exclaiming “Katie!  No!  It’s wrong!”  Then he would take the oyster from me and open it himself.  I say, hey, the oysters were being opened even if it’s not the ‘correct’ way so that’s that.  But Soon Min was so fretful over it.

Afterwards Soon Min was driving us home when I asked (and I should have known better based on prior experience with Soon Min) how Koreans celebrate New Years.  Soon Min can only speak a few words of English so lost in translation he took this as we wanted to go to a New Year’s Party.  So we drove to a famous mountain in Yeosu where there were people performing and singing and dancing.

There was a famous K-Pop band playing and after they were done the crowd died down a bit and Soon Min scored us some seats close to the front of the stage.  I really liked one singer so I was all “woooo” and “yeeaahhh get it.”  Apparently they don’t do this in Korea because I drew some attention not only in the crowd but from the host of the show.  I heard him speaking in Korean and then I heard/saw heads turn and stare at me.   Soon Min said “he’s talking to you.”  So I looked and he said “You’re very beautiful, I love you!  You are my girlfriend.”  

They love to declare this as if once it’s been said then it’s the truth.  This isn’t the first time I’ve just been blatantly told that I’m someone’s girlfriend. 

Later on, the audience had the opportunity to win prizes.  The prizes (and this is SO Korea) were Gat Kimchi.*

First some guy was singing and the host told people to go up and dance.  Now, I don’t remember going up there, or who forced me up there, but I ended up dancing with these two ageimas onstage and then I got a box of Gat Kimchi.

I thought it was over when Soon Min (having seen my performance at May’s wedding) signed me up to sing Mamma Mia.

So I went up there to sing Mamma Mia (which is quickly becoming the theme song of my Korean year) but before I did the host made me talk to him.  I was up there in front of say, 100-150 people, while the host was asking me if I had a boyfriend and telling me that my eyes were “deep, like a lake.”  (A lake not an ocean.  In other words: deep, but not too deep.)  It was preposterous.  Finally he let me sing while occasionally interjecting in the song but only briefly.  He would sing “Just One Look!” and then stop and “Mamma Mia!” and then stop.  He was quite humorous.  I won a second box of Gat Kimchi.

Before I left the stage he asked for my New Year’s message.  So I said “Sey Hey Bok Ma Ni Paduseyo” very slowly and probably made a fool of myself.  But I tried.

On the way out we got to tie a Korean message onto a steel frame of what I think was a duck.  This time I was a little more creative.  “T-Minus 355 days to the Zombie Apocalypse.  Live Well.  Memento Mori.  ~Katie Lynn”

For it being the first New Years spent away from Avery and Jess, I’d say I did it justice.  It was apretty ridiculous,, hard to put down into words, but I hopefully I caught the gist of it. 

T-Minus 352 days until the Zombie Apocalpyse.  Start preparing. J

*Apparently the word “syndicate” is the same word in Korean, who’da thought?

*Kimchi made of mustard leaves instead of cabbage.