It was bound to happen

One thing they don’t tell you about traveling is that you transform into a hunter/gatherer. I would say we spend most of our time trying to find food. We’ve already talked a little bit about what we look for when trying to find a place to eat. But whether we’re eating in or eating out, it still takes a while to find something that is in our price range. We’ve gotten way better at it, but sometimes we wait far too long before starting our search-and who knows how long that will take.

Well our second day in Busan, we were pretty hungry, but not the “people turning into cartoon T-bone steaks” level of hungry yet. We found a place that had pictures, and they had numbers, but the numbers were on one wall, the pictures were on another. We figured we’d give it a shot. Our waitress showed us where to sit and then brought over the type of self fill in paper menu you would find at a sushi restaurant back home. All in Korean. But it did have numbers. So I pointed at this first picture on the opposite wall. She looked at me kind of funny, walked alllll the way over to the picture to make sure. Pointed at it. Said something that sounded like “piggy”. I shook my head yes and confirmed. She shrugged her shoulders, came back and showed it to us on the menu. It was about 8,000 won, which is close to $7.50 USD, for a portion that was apparently big enough for two people. Thankfully we listened and didn’t order a second helping.

We were pretty excited to find something in a good price range. It looked like what we had for dinner the night before, which was great. We figured we’ve got this international travel thing down. No problem.

While we were waiting for the food, a nice old man with fewer teeth than numbers on your keyboard was trying to have a conversation with us. Again, all in Korean. We think he was telling us it was a popular restaurant that a lot of people come to and we made a good choice. He comes there often. That’s what we think he said. There’s no way to know. Even without making a single sound we understood, we were clear that he was certain we needed to try some Soju with our meal. Soju is a local libation that tastes somewhere between Sake and Vodka, just not nearly as harsh. He called the waitress over and bought us a small bottle. Just another example of an extremely generous local making sure we experience some of the best of their culture….or he may have been saying that we’re going to need it for what was coming out of the kitchen.

The food came and we dove in. A few bites in and I thought, man this is pretty good; a little fatty, but good. Meat, good. Onions, good. Spicy Korean BBQ sauce, good. All the little sides, good. As we slowed down and as the dish cooled down, we weren’t so sure. This is really fatty. Like all fatty. But these were calories that I paid for, so I was going to eat them. Sara had a few bites and made the switch to just the onions and the sides.

Sara let me know right away, “I think it’s the skin”. I wasn’t so sure. I had cooked an entire pig before and the skin was great. Maybe the best part. Almost like jerky. “Yea, there’s probably some skin on there.”, I said.

“No I think it’s just skin.”

I powered through a few more bites and then even I couldn’t take it. I scrapped away the sauce and there in all its glory was a pale, pasty, follicle filled slab of fatty meat.

We ate every morsel of the sides and the non-mystery meat part and then went up to pay. I pointed at the picture on the wall again and asked what it was. She answered in Korean. I asked, “pig?” She shook her head yes, pinched the fat of her forearm and said, “skin, pig skin”. Yep, she confirmed it. Straight up pig skin.

We are absolutely positive we’ve unknowingly eaten some strange things on this trip already and we know we will surely eat more. But this was pretty bad. It sat pretty heavy the rest of the night. When in Korea, definitely try the BBQ, but stay away from the pig skin.

From Busan, with love…and regret.

Will + Sara