I actually ate fish with speckles of gold on them today. Besides my Japanese meal with Woo and working on my blog, I did almost nothing today unless you count sleeping in. After the last very intense week and a half it felt good to severely cut back on the sensations coming at me. Tomorrow looks to be a similar day, then Friday I’m off to India. It’s starting to hit me what striking things I’ve done here in a short time in Korea. It’s also hitting me how much I’ve come to really like this country. The people are amazingly friendly, they seem to be very intelligent, and they’ve rebounded remarkably well from devastating historical events.

After sleeping until the late morning, I had lunch in the International House. I was the only one there and the choices were between the hamburger meal or the sandwich meal. I chose the hamburger meal and the woman brought me an American style hamburger with french fries and a coke with ketchup on the side. I haven’t had a meal anything like this since I got here. Strangely, this meal seemed exotic to me in a double negative kind of way, being exotically not exotic.

Margaret let me know she had gotten the Hittite-style tesselation wine carafe I bought in Turkey. She had a very good time injuring herself and making a mess opening the container.

Hittite tessellating wine carafe just arrived from Turkey (left), mess left by the obnoxious, but effective packing (right). I’m sure Margaret is glad I bought this so that she could enjoy her injury getting the package open.

I spent the afternoon finishing the blog of the day I was in the DMZ (Day 4). WordPress was fighting me particularly hard today. If there are any WordPress experts reading this, please let me know. I get paragraphs that do not have a blank line between them and nothing I do will fix it. I found a fix online that didn’t work.

The only highlight of my day was dinner with Woo. He called me in the afternoon to give me 4 options for dinner — a beef place, a Korean place, an Indian place, or a Japanese raw seafood place. He told me later that the one place he doubted I would choose was the Japanese place, which is what somehow intrigued me. He picked me up in a taxi at 5:30 and we drove to an alleyway filled with restaurants.

Alleyway filled with restaurants where Woo and I had Japanese food

Woo assured me he wasn’t kidding that this raw fish actually had speckles of gold on it. There were probably 25 dishes or so, brought out at 6 or 7 times.

Raw fish with speckles of gold on it

We were in a private room and sitting on the floor as is the Japanese custom. Some of the Korean restaurants I’ve been in also have the same format but they often also have a separate area with tables. There was no choice here and even though I have a hard time sitting on the floor, I could lean against the wall and stretch my legs out.

Sitting on the floor in our private room with the first few of many dishes to come

After I spilled some food on me, Woo got a vest from a hanger that was designed for slobs like me. It looked a bit ridiculous since it was too small. Even the server laughed at it.

A type of oyster which I had a hard time eating (left), ridiculous looking vest as a bib but it looks like I’m in bliss (right)

Sushi and maki (raw fish), which I’ve had at home but this was better

Ginko (which is supposed to have health benefits like counteracting Alzheimer’s) and garlic mixed together, both delicious

Looks barbaric to be chewing the head of a fish, sorry for the image

The only parts of the meal that someone who is not queasy about this type of food were the big pieces of lettuce, the garlic, the fried fish, the strawberries, the rice, and the potatoes. Actually that would be enough for a good meal but all that was maybe 1/4 of the meal. Every time I thought they were done. more came out. After I was sure we were done, they came out with rice and a delicious spicy soup.

Shark fins (left) and spicy soup (right)

 The very last part of the meal was 4 massive strawberries and some sweet green tea. Woo and I had begun the process of going over what the week had been like and how we could meet again. Every 4 years there is the International Conference of Mathematics Education. In 2012 it will be held in Seoul. I’ve been to ones in Budapest in 1988 and Quebec City in 1992 and they use a much better format than US conferences. Much more participation and working groups around themes as opposed to our conferences which have a bunch of people who present on mostly unrelated topics. Maybe I’ll go, possibly to present a paper with me and Woo and / or others I’ve met in Korea. Maybe somehow Woo can get to the US with a grant a maybe with a joint paper.

Strawberries to finish the meal

It’s been such a different day from the others, just hanging out at the International House and working on the blog. I’m starting to get my strength up to where it will need to be for the long flight to India and what is still to come beyond that.