I think it is fair to say that I can officially lose the 'Pusan virgin' tag now that I've eaten the live octopus.

I am not really sure how to define it. It is known as eating live octopus, but it's not alive. The octopus is served up in little bits, all chopped up. But, it is still moving around, like a plate with dozens of worms struggling to break out of the plate. Disturbingly, some of them actually do wriggle out of the plate.

To eat it, you pick a bit out, you dip it in the sesame sauce (which is delicious), stick the octopus into the condiment, watch it move around a bit, then work up some courage and bite down!

It is actually very delicious, but here's two survival tips of eating the live octopus.

1 - Consuming a significant amount of soju beforehand always helps.

2 - Don't swallow too quickly. Make sure you chew it thoroughly as it has been known that the octopus can come back up after it is swallowed, but it is capable of twisting and turning back up, getting stuck in your throat during the process. Or according to P. Frater, it could wriggle into your lungs after it came back up to your throat and effectively killing you in the process. He is adament every year, someone dies from it in Korea.

Until next year...goodbye, kinda dead octopus eating.... 

(V. Ho)

For a bunch of foreigners with absolutely no Korean beyond "gahm-sah-hahm-ni-da," always said with a bow and big smile, Variety editors did remarkably well in a little eatery tucked behind the tower o' food (you know, the building with the quintessential American joints Starbucks, Bennigans, TGIFriday's and Outback Steakhouse) that we simply called The Shack, because, well, it's a wooden shack, albeit a clean one, with lots of signage but all in Korean script. The menu offers no pictures that can save foreigners in a restaurant such as this, nor did the owners feel it necessary to take a stab at bad English translations. But all it took was a finger pointed in the direction of the table-top grill, along with the word "galbi" to produce a delicious feast of kim chee dishes and barbecue beef. Oh, and "beer," which seems to be universal, and in this case translated into ice-cold Hite. All for $24 for a party of three.

The moral of the story? This would never happen at the Cannes festival.

(C. Horst) 

The rain is back. Apparently this is a side effect of Typhoon Krosa which is already affecting flights into the area especially from China and Taiwan.

But that's not my point. I want to know whether the wet is good or bad for the Pusan Market.

Opinion goes both ways. On one hand it keeps people in the Grand Hotel and taking meetings. On the other if you have a rendezvous at the other end of the strip in the Paradise you're going to get wet – or end up waiting half an hour for a taxi.

Glad we brought those Variety umbrellas...

(P.Frater)

I feel like I am not being adventurous enough when it comes to hunting down the quintessential local dish. Sure, I've had A LOT of seafood, but after 3 days I am still a bit intimidated by the backstreets of Pusan, away from the vicinity of the beach front.

Yesterday I took the first step: my colleague and I went inside a very local noodle joint. We quickly realized English is going to be useless, and we were quickly led outside to look at the photos outisde the shop. I picked the noodles that didn't look horrifically spicy...but apart from that highly uneducated guess, I really have no idea what I had ordered.

With anticipation (and a little bit of fear), the noodles came. It was a bowl of ramen with a GIANT SLICE OF CHEESE in it. Odd,  but delicious. Later a Korean friend told me the cheese ramen is a very common dish in Korea. 

So, now I am going to pose the very important question. What else must I eat before I leave? 

(V. Ho)