Will I Starve to Death in Korea?

If you know me and what I eat, you know that I can be a picky eater. Don't get me wrong when I go to a restaurant I can always find something to eat off of the menu. There are many things I just don't like and I choose to avoid eating them. These are things like cake, ice cream, salad dressing (I know you are all scratching you heads because you didn't know there were people like me), seaweed and fish. I know what you are thinking, how can somebody survive in an Asian country and not like fish? This is something I worry about as well.

So I have decided I am going to teach myself to like seaweed and fish. There are many reasons behind this, first off so I don't offend people in Korea by telling them they are crazy that they like fish in the first place (it's like telling someone from Utah that you don't have to eat ice cream to survive). The second reason is, according to my roommate Catherine fish is very healthy and is good for your skin. Who would not want to be healthier and have better skin?

To understand why I don't like fish I have had to think back over my life and see where this all started. I think it was the first time I went to the ocean and a wave caught me off guard and I ended up swallowing a lot of gross, salty sea water. It was the worst taste I have ever remember tasting in my life. At this point I had never had any sea food in my life, but I had heard how good it was, so for my birthday I asked my parents if we could get sea food for my birthday. My dad was so excited so he found a good place for us to go and he helped me order some fish and shrimp. I remember being so excited about eating it I couldn't wait for the food to come out. When I took the bite of the fish (I don't remember what type it was) I wanted to throw up because all I could think of was the taste the ocean water left from when I was younger. I tried the shrimp as well and had the same reaction. That was when I decided I couldn't eat sea food.

Now don't get me wrong I have tried sea food since then, and Stacey has had me try many pieces of seaweed with different things to try and get me use to it, and yet I still can not eat it. I think if I keep trying there will come a day when my taste buds will get over the bad taste from the ocean and I will be able to eat fish and seaweed.

I know that fish is not the only thing they eat in Korea, I have tried some of their other dishes and I love them. I will have to write more about those in another post.

I guess if all else fails I can just say that I am part of the sharks club in Finding Nemo, I will tell them that "Fish are friends, not food." That should work, right?