Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

I held a cold writhing octopus in my bare hand tonight.

I was strolling through an Anyang backstreet, and after photographing one of the many bubbling tanks of sea life in front of a restaurant, the owner came outside and thrust her hand into the water, fighting an eight-legged beast to the surface -- tentacles sucking the glass to fight surfacing. She had shoved her thumb into a flap in its head and gave me a big smile while it flung icy water through the air into my eye.

This is the restaurant owner's hand before she handed it to me:



Their suction cups glue onto your hands, leaving a fine slimy residue. The scent left on my hands reminded me of the beach during autumn as I was trying to rub them together to stay warm in the Korean winter air.

A few hours prior, I had had an amazing experience. And please understand that I'm not exaggerating when I say this: I had the best meal of my LIFE tonight. The first course was fatty tuna (Toro), which is like a work of art, in all its fat-marbled goodness. Koreans claim they invented sushi before the Japanese; I now believe them:



And the second course is what I refer to as the "shovel from the sea platter":




Then I walked it off, but I swear I did not visit this place. Going in alone would have pushed me over the edge into full douchebaggery:



It's bullshit that Japanese scientists JUST captured the giant squid; Koreans have been selling that shit on every other street corner since time immemorial: