Touring In My Own Town

This past weekend, Cadena and I decided to be tourists in our own town - a jingly little phrase I am shamelessly stealing from a Lansing, MI ad campaign from my childhood!

So, we rode the red line subway from end to end, just to see what it looks like "out there"; specifically, NO DIFFERENT than any other part of the city we have seen. Incredible.

Neither of us has taken up Hangul yet, either, so it wasn't like we could just hop on a bus and watch as the town swept by...no, we had to do the underground passage. And Daegu is so small, it didn't take long. At the end of our fun-ride, we thought we'd have lunch and then take a tour bus around the city, as that seemed safe.

And that's when we found it - Mr. Big's Family Restaurant, which specializes in, apparently, burgers.  I can't remember the last time I actually ate a hamburger. And I'm telling you, the wait was worth it. We both took our first bites and just looked at each other as if to say, "OMG!". Yeah, it was that good. (So, Dad, you can come visit now that I've found an American breakfast place AND a burger joint!)

I did not get pics of the burgers - gone too fast?!? - but I did want to post french fries with the preferred condiment, olio. Blech. We had to ask for ketchup:)

 Post-hamburger-coma, we headed out on the town again, this time in search of the bus station. On the way, we stumbled on Chilseong Market, one of the bigger open air vendor sites in town.

We are not advised to purchase seafood/fish here

Yes, those are hot dogs in plastic.

And this is where we found out that Koreans really do eat dog...it is not just some derogatory joke...

The tradition of eating dog comes from Korea's distressing past of being conquered by the Chinese, then the Japanese, then the Chinese again....etc. What was once survival food is now a delicacy, but not one that they proclaim from the hills, let's say. In fact, my friend Cadena knows of at least one Korean American friend who adamantly denies this practice. Clearly, this is not the case. They have dog farms (I've seen one from a train) on which they raise dogs just for eating; they only eat one breed, bred specifically for this purpose.

And it's one of the more interesting aspects of this culture shock I'm experiencing. Eating dog, while terribly different and horrifying to imagine for me, is a natural part of this culture. Surprisingly, while I've had market mistresses shoo me from taking pictures of their products, no one at this stand or the goat-and-dog restaurant did so. It is simply a part of life.

We never made it to the hop-on-hop-off bus, as the day was HOT and we had walked enough. But it was a full day of culture shock, picture taking, and immersion! Just what I've been looking for.