Eleven hours in the car to eat $140 worth of raw fish

I took my first road trip in Korea last weekend. Seth, another reporter at Stripes, invited me and a couple of other people to go to Seoraksan National Forest to hike and see the ocean. The park is near the seaside town Sokcho, and both are a destination for Koreans in the fall. The park offers short hikes and amazing views of a mountain range and the fall colors. Sokcho offers fresh seafood killed, gutted and, if you insist, cooked before your very eyes.

The trip from Seoul is less than 150 miles, but it took us five hours to get there and six to return the next day in our rented van. The roads for about two hours outside of Seoul are conjested, and there's no real highway system. (Outside of the shorter highways in Seoul, the only expressway in the entire country runs north/south. It's called Highway 1.) Instead, most of the roads are two- and four-land boulevards with stoplights. Once we were about 40 miles outside of Seoul, the spaces between the towns and stoplights increased, but the roads began wending up and down mountains. The switchbacks were much like those along California's Highway 1, except that instead of the Pacific Ocean, we had alternating views of mountain sides and box canyons.

Outside of Seoul, the countryside was rural and depressed. The small towns that popped up along the way were little more than crossroads, and the buildings and homes were worn down. Sometimes we'd drive for a couple of hours before seeing a gas station. Other times, farmers would cross the two lane highway without looking for oncoming traffic. Trash dumps were beside gardens. Dogs wandered around. A few houses had chickens in the front yard.

Seoraksan (I think it means Snowy Crags Mountain) was the busiest outdoor park I've ever been in. Thousands and thousands of people were there, and very few were dressed for hiking. Most were families and older couple, or women in lipstick, loafers and members only jackets who were marching up steps and rock at an impressive rate. The trails we went on were as crowded as a shopping mall. About every half-kilometer, a restaurant would appear complete with outdoor dining, beer, wine and snacks. It sounds convenient, but the cafes didn't seem that clean, and few Koreans were eating there. Maybe the prices are too high.

Throughout the park were people who were hawking homemade food -- stuffed, doughy dumplings, roasted ginko nuts, thick honey on a stick and some ubiquitous larve stew that shows up on a lot of Korean street corners. It's one of the few things I don't think I'll ever be able to eat. The smell alone is enough to turn my stomach. Another guy on the trip said he tried one; a young Korean woman had convinced him it would be a good idea. She ate handfuls, but he tried one and swore off them (and I think her, too) for life.

Which brings me to the story of our dinner. We had left Seoul at 8 a.m., and stopped along the way at a Korean diner. I had half a bowl of soba noodles, and we had a few snacks in the car, but we really hadn't eaten anything all day. So after changing at our seaside motel (cost: $30 a night, beds not included), we went to the wharf to have dinner.

The boardwalk was filled with seafood vendors on one side and seafood restaurants on the other. In front of every vendor were plastic tubs full of swimming fish. Woman standing beside them would occassionally stick a net into a tub, pull out a fish and begin gutting it. Then they'd cook it up for people sitting behind the vendors in makeshift restaurants under tents. It looks like they mostly made stews, although some of the women were frying up shrimp and zucchini, tempura-style.

On the restaurant side, there were actual restaurants with menus, tables and, most importantly, beer. One of the people with us, Jennifer, is half-Korean and speaks both Korean and English fluently. We went into the restaurant our motel-owner recommended, and then Jennifer stopped. "You realize it's all raw," she told us. We said we didn't care as long as she kept ordering more bottles of Cass, the malty yellow beer that's at every restaurant in Korea.

Jennifer ordered, and she wasn't mistaken. For 140,000 won (about $140), she had ordered a platter full of raw fish. It included about six white fish, one tuna-like fillet, some squid, mussles and a few other things I couldn't identify. When the waitress first brought it, all of the creatures' heads were on the plate. She came back and removed them before we started eating, and I noticed she did the same for other diners. I think it's to prove that the fish parts are fresh and all came from the same owner.

We had rice, wasabi, soy sauce and an assortment of kimchi, so I decided to make sushi. For the most part, it was really good. They also provided lettuce leaves that you could use to roll up an assortment of fish and flavors to eat like a little burrito. After we finished most of the fish, the waitress set a burner on our table with a soup pot on top. It contained the bones from the fish we had just eaten, along with a few noodles, cabbage and arugula. In a few minutes, we had fish-flavored soup.

The next day we went back to Seoraksan to ride a cable car to the tallest peak. After the $7 ride, we climbed about another 300 meters to the very top. It was an amazing few all the way the coast and all of Sokcho, about 10 miles away. Scrambling up and down the peak was a little harrowing, however, because of the crowds. It was like being on a subway escalator at rush hour, except you had to be careful that no one stepped on your hand as you found your next hold.

We left about 1 p.m. and got back to Yongsan Garrison, the army base in Seoul, at about 7:30 p.m. It was a long two days, but worth it. I'll have to drive throughout Korea eventually, so it was good to watch someone else navigate the Korean roads and maps. It was also nice to be outdoors on bright, crisp fall days, even if there were 10,000 other people there too.