Delays and Rotten Fish

Posted on 2008/06/26 15:10:50 (June 2008).

[Thursday 26th June 2008]

Korea is always a surprise to me, no matter how many times I came here I still get some novelties.

The first novelty is something that I would have much rather avoid altogether... Now, before I venture in the explanation the careful reader might be thinking, which one of the two experiences described in the title is Lox referring to?

Well the first one (believe it or not), delays.

Thanks to a questionable air carrier, that goes by the name of Cathay Pacific, I finally managed to experience the "totally delayed and airport ordeal" package.

It all started at 5 o'clock in the morning, with me waking up in Hong Kong, followed by a bus ride that resembled a post-hurricane scenery, with the bus being hit by U.F.O. (unidentified flying objects, more commonly known, in this case, as BRANCHES)... Already the flight was delayed of 2 hours, because of the bad weather, but all in all it was ok.

We got on the plane to know that they were "loading something" and we had to wait one more hour. Oh well, they were loading something after all!
Then we start rolling, there is a queue we are told, wait another hour. Then the plane is about to get on the runway and what happens?
"we have a little technical problem, need to go fix it"... So the plane doens't leave and we get to the engineering department instead.
Now we start to get pissed, how in the grace of God did they find out of a technical problem just before taking off?!? And fuck the "little" too, if it needs repairing is not that little right?!

TWO hours later, we are told that the repairs cannot be made and we need to change the plane. Since we cannot move and the plane is not at the finger, we need to get off via ladder, shame that it's absolutely raining cats and dogs (horizontally thanks to the wind), and we all got drenched...

One more hour passed and finally we get to the airport, ready to board another aircraft. The new aircraft is delayed of TWO MORE hours (9 hours total), people were completely pissed off, and the staff was quite unhelpful. I cannot stop thinking that the situation could have been managed a lot better, eventually we got to Seoul very late at night.

The other part of the Korean visit was highlighted by this new experience, eating RAW ROTTEN FISH. Well technically the fish is left "fermenting", in a jar, but still what you have is rotten meat. the taste is terribly interesting, as it varies from normal fish sashimi to ROQUEFORT CHEESE and ends up with a very strong ammoniac taste. Lovely stuff, couldn't eat more than 4 slices though, it's quite strong.

Tomorrow I am off home... I mean, Japan. It has been a long time since I was there (well it was October, but it feels a long time to me)...

Yeaucchhh!!!!! That.. weather sounds horrible!!! ;D

Posted by Nigel at 2008/06/27 09:55:16.

And the fish doesn't sound too great, either! :-)

Posted by Bryan at 2008/06/27 10:14:44.

The fish was allright I guess... It's part of my quest to get as many culinary experiences as I can... :P

Posted by Lox at 2008/06/28 14:45:26.

Ah well, when you next come to Greece you will have to try eating a Greek delicacy: a sheep's eye - they burst in your mouth :-)

Posted by Bryan at 2008/06/29 07:02:40.

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