Tonight's Menu-- Eel

Tonight was a special school staff dinner to celebrate the completion of the school talent show, which was awesome!   But, you'll have to wait to hear about that until sometime next week (I have about 300 pictures to look through, edit, and chose for the blog!).

With that said, after school today, all of the staff went to a beachfront restaurant in Taejongdae

(on the island) and ate... ready for it?? 

EEL!

Oy vey!

Well, that was the main dish.  I had never eaten Eel, so it was a bit interesting to me. (top left and bottom left picture). It came out raw and chopped up, and was then cooked at our table.  Then we dipped it in a red sauce and wrapped it in some lettuce. The grossest part about tonights Eel was the fact that the men sitting at my table not only cooked and ate the entire eel heads, they cooked and ate the stomach and intestines too.  Uuuuggghhh!

(photo's take with my phone)

When you need something at a restaurant in Korea, you don't raise your hand or try to motion for your server to come over... you simply yell "Emo!" or "Chogio!"  etc... During the dinner I heard another teacher yell "Sajang neem" to an older man working in the restaurant.  I asked Okk what it meant and she said it meant "owner."  Perfect, I thought, I'll have to remember that and use it in other situations.  Later in the night I was thirsty, so I yelled "Salang neem" to that same old guy.  When he didn't look my way I yelled it again, "Salang neem!"  When he realized I was calling for him, he looked over and gave me a really strange look.  Simultaneously, Okk was doubled over laughing next to me.  Turns out I said "salang neem" instead of "sajang neem," which directly stranslates as "My love", "darling", "sweartheart," etc... 

You get the idea!  LOL

After dinner, my principal set up an entire Karaeoke machine in the restautant and made almost everyone sing while he played his saxophone... including me!  Luckily Okk joined me and we sang a random English kids song... turned out to be a big crowd pleaser - thank goodness!  Could have gone either way.

Okk and I snuck out before everyone else left and ran in the rain (without umbrellas) about a mile to the bus stop, laughing the whole way with our scarves wrapped around our heads!  Luckily, another teacher had left after us and picked us up as we were almost to the bus stop and ended up driving us both all the way home... so nice!   It's great to have good co-workers... I just wish they liked going to eat Mexican food instead of Eels!  Can't have it all!