Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Octopus
I've been meaning to write this blog for a couple days now but everytime I sit down to write I forget what it was I wanted to write about. Anyways, a couple days ago it was a beautiful spring day. It was a Sunday and I decided to go for a nice long walk since I won't be here much longer. I walked down some streets I hadn't seen and checked out some shops I'd never noticed. Just a pleasant stroll as it were.
So to give you some background, the restaurants here all have large aquariums in front of their business. Depending on the type of food sold there, a literal plethora of water creatures can be found chilling out before they're eventually plucked from their temporary home and eaten...often raw and still writhing. Common animals to see in these holding tanks are fish, of course, as well as eels, HUGE monster crabs, mussels and clams of all varieties and sizes, big nasty sea worms as well as octopus. I like tapping on the glass and making these creatures move around.
So I was about to cross the street at a very large and busy intersection when I noticed that a man was selling stuff out of the back of his truck parked right there on the side of the street. He reached in a styrofoam cooler like container and out came a middle sized octopus dangling in the wind...its arms going every which way. I decided to go over and ask if I could hold it. I'd never touched an octopus before...at least not a living one. He let me hold it but he was in a bad mood so after a brief encounter with my first octopus I handed it back to him.
About a half hour later I saw some tanks in front of a restaurant. They were all filled to the brim. The restaurant must've just gotten a delivery or something. Anyways, one of the tanks was full of baby octopus. I'd guess there were about 100 of them in there. I was just standing and staring at them when a woman inside opened the window and looked at me as if to say "what are you doing?" I smiled and pointed at all the octopus. She came out of the restaurant and opened the lid. She invited me to reach in and grab one. So I got to touch another octopus and it was cool. The suckers on their legs can really hold on pretty damn tight. I was letting it sit in the palm of my hand and it decided it'd had enough so it went from limp and scared to picking itself up with alien like movement and jumping out of my hand and back into the water. It felt weird to have something so fluid and smooshy all of a sudden take shape and start walking and indeed, jumping (!!!) right in the palm of my hand.
I want to get an aquarium and have a couple octopus in it. I think that'd be cool. They're the weirdest creatures I believe I've ever encountered. Here in S. Korea they like to take them straight outta the water and cut them to shreds with scissors. They love to eat the still writhing arms right then and there. I wonder if they can feel the arms squirming around in their intestines. I should try it for myself and see but I like octopus too much I'm afraid to eat one.
Take care!!!
So to give you some background, the restaurants here all have large aquariums in front of their business. Depending on the type of food sold there, a literal plethora of water creatures can be found chilling out before they're eventually plucked from their temporary home and eaten...often raw and still writhing. Common animals to see in these holding tanks are fish, of course, as well as eels, HUGE monster crabs, mussels and clams of all varieties and sizes, big nasty sea worms as well as octopus. I like tapping on the glass and making these creatures move around.
So I was about to cross the street at a very large and busy intersection when I noticed that a man was selling stuff out of the back of his truck parked right there on the side of the street. He reached in a styrofoam cooler like container and out came a middle sized octopus dangling in the wind...its arms going every which way. I decided to go over and ask if I could hold it. I'd never touched an octopus before...at least not a living one. He let me hold it but he was in a bad mood so after a brief encounter with my first octopus I handed it back to him.
About a half hour later I saw some tanks in front of a restaurant. They were all filled to the brim. The restaurant must've just gotten a delivery or something. Anyways, one of the tanks was full of baby octopus. I'd guess there were about 100 of them in there. I was just standing and staring at them when a woman inside opened the window and looked at me as if to say "what are you doing?" I smiled and pointed at all the octopus. She came out of the restaurant and opened the lid. She invited me to reach in and grab one. So I got to touch another octopus and it was cool. The suckers on their legs can really hold on pretty damn tight. I was letting it sit in the palm of my hand and it decided it'd had enough so it went from limp and scared to picking itself up with alien like movement and jumping out of my hand and back into the water. It felt weird to have something so fluid and smooshy all of a sudden take shape and start walking and indeed, jumping (!!!) right in the palm of my hand.
I want to get an aquarium and have a couple octopus in it. I think that'd be cool. They're the weirdest creatures I believe I've ever encountered. Here in S. Korea they like to take them straight outta the water and cut them to shreds with scissors. They love to eat the still writhing arms right then and there. I wonder if they can feel the arms squirming around in their intestines. I should try it for myself and see but I like octopus too much I'm afraid to eat one.
Take care!!!
