Noryangjin Fish Market

Since Korea is surrounded by ocean, much of Korean cuisine features fish and seafood. While Koreans love their barbeque, they actually eat a lot more seafood than meat. And when it comes to fresh seafood, you can't get it any fresher than at Noryangjin Fish Market, a traditional seafood market located right by a pier in Seoul.

Noryangjin has 2 levels. The first level is where all the vendors display their catch, and customers can come take their pick. Row after row of vendors are lined up in a large warehouse-like complex, with buckets full of shrimp, mussels, sea cucumbers, live octopus, and whatever else you could ever hope to find in the ocean. The second floor is filled with small restaurants that actually prepare your seafood purchase on the spot.

Overhead view of the fish market

One of the vendors' stalls

So many different kinds of seafood that I can't even begin to name them all

Lisa and I once watched a Youtube video of a girl eating a live octopus in Korea, and we wanted to try that experience for ourselves. Nearly every vendor had buckets filled with octopuses of every size swimming around in the water. For only 10,000 won ($10), we bought a foot-long octopus to take upstairs for some live sashimi. We also picked up a fresh mackerel before giving our purchase to a restaurant owner.

The cook took our bags of seafood and then came out with a plate full of chopped octopus legs. Unlike fish, octopuses don't immediately die right after being cut. The nerve endings in the legs are still active so the legs still move on the plate as you eat. It was unnerving to see your lunch move right in front of you, but we eventually picked up the courage to try it. It was pretty difficult to eat since the legs try to stick together as you pick them off the plate. Even after, the legs continue to squirm in your chopsticks and even in your mouth. Sometimes the tentacles would even stick to your lips as you try to put them in your mouth! One trick we learned is to dip the legs in soy sauce, since the salt helps to inactivate the nerve endings. When you first put a leg into the soy sauce, it starts wiggling more aggressively, but then it goes limp and becomes a lot easier to handle.

Live demo: how to eat live octopus

The consistency of live octopus is extremely rubbery and a bit slimy. It may sound really unappetizing, but the octopus itself doesn't really taste like anything. Instead, all you taste is the dipping sauce, which is usually soy sauce with wasabi or hot pepper paste with vinegar.

The cook also grilled our mackerel, which tasted great with kimchi and seaweed salad. If you're ever in Seoul and are looking for a uniquely Korean experience, I highly recommend visiting Noryangjin Fish Market. Even though you may be put off by some of the sights and smells, it's something you really can't find anywhere else.

The final result: our freshly cooked seafood meal!