Becoming a Non-Vegetarian

Looking over my last post I realise I have been extremely slack. I had planned to update this blog, hopefully, once a week. However it is already just over 4 weeks since we started travelling and I have only written 2 posts. I apologise greatly. Unfortunately this slackness will probably happen again so I already apologise for future lack of writing.

Dried chilli is in a lot of Korean dishes.

So anyway here is a new post. Since my last post we have travelled a lot throughout the south of Korea. We  have been to Gwangju (a busy big city with not much to do), Mokpo (a bad port town with even less to do),  Heuksan Island (set in a national park, we had the scariest ferry ride in our lives with swells up to 4m!), Yeosu (a great town with the coolest aquarium that has Beluga whales), Busan (we really only saw the airport) and Jeju Island (a place we liked so much we kept extending our stay and we went 40m below sea level in a submarine!). There are many other adventures we had in each of these places but I won't bore you.

Korean BBQ. Cook the meat, wrap it in lettuce and dip in sauce.

One thing people have been asking me about is the food. The first time I had Korean food was when we were still in Auckland and I was meeting Justin's parents for the first time. That was nerve racking enough and what made it worse I had to use chopstick in front of them. Now I'm normally okay with chopsticks, but we went to a restaurant and they only had heavy metal ones. These are a lot harder to use than wooden chopsticks and I struggled for a while before they took pity on me and ordered a fork. Since then I have had many opportunities to use both metal chopsticks and eat Korean food.

Justin eating bung-a-pang. As mentioned in a previous post it is red beans in batter in the shape of carp.

Most food in Korea is yum. However not much of it is vegetarian friendly, and if it is then it is either spicy or monotonous. While in Seoul it was okay. There were enough places with lots of variety, but as we have travelled into smaller and smaller places it has become harder. In Mokpo and Heuksan in was almost impossible. That area's specialty is sea food. Heuksan in particular was hard as every single restaurant only had 4-6 things on their menu and they all consisted of variations on paua (abalone) and rays (stingray). I lived on white rice and bean sprouts for those few days.

Stingrays drying.

After 2 weeks of eating mostly rice, bean sprouts, mushrooms and egg for at least two meals of every day I gave in and had meat. Pork to be exact and it was yum (for those who don't know, I'm vegetarian for ethical reasons, not because I don't like it). Since then I admit I have had about half a dozen meals with meat and most of them have been good.

Traditional Korean meal. Lots of little side dishes that everyone shares and their own bowl of rice.

But I have craved fresh food and the markets have been good for that. Each region in Korea is know for a special food. Jeju Island is famous for it's mandarins so we ate lots of those when we were there. Strawberries are also plentiful here. They are all too perfect looking and tasting to be anything other than grown in a greenhouse and possibly genetically engineered, or at least covered in fertiliser. But they are still really yum.

Daikon radishes at a market, each about as big as a rugby ball. 

Today we returned to Seoul and once again it has become much easier to return to vegetarian food. It feels much better.

Here are some more foodie pictures:

Drying seaweed.

Silkworm pupae, to eat. 

Fish crates.

Squid Boat.

We went on a submarine, but these fish are not for eating. 

The submarine is in a national park with a coral reef.