here we go

well i haven't yet figured out how or where to create an album to link to this page but stay tuned because it'll be coming shortly. anywho, this picture deserves a special mention and needs attention now. that, my friends, is a pity fish. yes, you heard right- a pity fish. ok, adventure korea is a business, i get that. they set up tours and trips, and make their money off of people having a good time. you can't blame them for that. but still... after you've been fishing for 30 minutes or so, they start making their way around to all the gringos, with their local press, with their photographers, and with their cooler full of pity fish. the girl who was my fishing partner and i tried to say no. "no? you don't want a fish?"
"we want to catch a real fish."
"it is a real fish."
"we know, we just want to catch it ourselves."
"ah--don't worry, don't worry, this is for real... someone caught it. here, now smile big and overact. luke, pull it out with power, and you be impressed with his catch. overact. overact."

i said it before and i'll say it again- this kinda dirty just don't wash off. this picture, of course is not the one for the newspaper, but rather from my camera... nope, no overacting there- just pure, unadulterated ambivalence. one of my students said he saw my picture in the paper, and it might be true, but he is kind of a liar... tho i think i would like to have it just for fun. as for the fish itself, we had the option of eating it raw or having it cooked. easy choice right? well when they cooking it they don't bother killing it- they just wrap it in tinfoil and throw it on the grill. it doesn't start flopping around until the heat works its way through the tinfoil which can take kind of a long time... so does the flopping around. we decided our pity fish deserved a better fate than that so we took him to they guy with the big knife. quick and painless- kinda. i figured he'd cut the head off, but he flipped the knife around, tapped it twice on the back of the head, and gutted it. i'm not sure how hard you have to hit a fish to kill it, and to be sure, the guy with the knife has much more experience than me, but still, that didn't seem like enough... and it certainly wasn't any more dignified than the grill.
by the way, raw fish has a much better texture than cooked fish, and a different taste... all in all, ya know, except for the fact it was a pity fish, i liked eating it.