Oryukdo and Haemul Pajeon

Today our boss took us to Oryukdo, a group of islets just a short drive from where we live. The name Oryukdo means "five or six islands." It is called this because at high tide a land bridge connecting two of the islands is submerged. So at low tide there are five islands and at high tide there are six. These islands are actually very tiny, and only one is supposedly inhabited.

Sun setting near Oryukdo today.

View of one of the Oryukdo islets - this is the supposedly inhabited one. There is a white lighthouse on this islet and you can see it in the background on the right side if you look closely.


This woman was casting out a basket to harvest various shellfish from the ocean. Right after we took this picture, she heaved the basket out to sea with a cheerful and dramatic yelp.

One of the fisherwomen displaying her goods for sale near Oryukdo. She had all kinds of shellfish we had never seen before, and nobody knew the names in English. Our boss said he doesn't like eating them, but he offered to buy some for us and eat them with us if we wanted. We declined, but this was a very typically Korean gesture.

Close-up of the fisherwoman's catch.

"Adrienne, Dr. Jun - Look up at the camera! Smile! Dr. Jun? Dr. Jun? Oh well, I'll just go ahead and take the picture."

Our dinner tonight - haemul pajeon, Korean seafood and scallion pancake. This was gigantic, the picture doesn't do it justice. Various types of seafood - octopus, squid, crab, shrimp - plus mushrooms, peppers and maybe a shoebox full of scallions, all fried in a battery mixture of some sort. Delicious, though certainly not healthy.