Suprise! You Have Eaten Dog.

My  first day in Tongyeong, several moons ago, I was walking about to get the lay of the land. In the shipbuilding area I was stopped on the street by a good natured Uzbeki fellow by the name of Rapshan. His English was very poor, but we chatted a little bit, and I went on my way. About an hour later, I saw Rapshan on the other side of the bridge and he offered to show me around downtown. I wanted to know where to find a towel, so Rapshan guided us to "New Downtown", where we looked around the mega store "Lotte Mart". I bought a towel and a coffee mug.

We decided to get dinner, so we walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant. Incidentally, we walked by my school. This proved to be serendipitous, as no one from my school bothered to tell me where it was. In any case, we went to an all you can eat Korean barbecue. Actually, this is the only all you can eat Korean barbecue that I have seen so far. Since it was all you can eat, and they had several different cuts of tasty looking meat, I felt obliged to try them all. They were all as tasty as they looked. When time came to pay, I was happy to learn that the meal had cost a mere ten thousand won (~$10).

Now, there is peculiar habit of Korean restaurant owners of sometimes putting cute little cartoon drawings of the kind of animal that they typically sell in their restaurant. For example, in a place that sells pork sausage, you might see a super excited cartoon pig, pleased, presumably at the prospect of being eaten. I had been wondering for the past month where this particular barbecue was, being the only all you can eat restaurant that I am aware of in Tongyeong. Also I knew it was only a couple of blocks from the school. Yesterday, I decided to hit a couple balls at the batting cages near the school. So it happened that I walked to the school from the west instead of from the east. Lo and behold, I had stumbled upon my beloved barbecue. I recognized the orange awning.

Since when I had previously gone to the barbecue it was dark, I couldn't see the the awning very well, and consequently did not see the cute little drawings on it. I did not see the cute little drawing of the clam. I did not see the cute little drawing of the shrimp. I did not see the caricature of a cow, nor did I see the one of the dog, who look so very pleased to have been digested in my stomach. Sorry R.B.