What Is Big, Pink and Lives at the Bottom of the Sea?

Ok, have you heard that joke? Well, the answer is a play on the title of a Melville novel, and I'm not talking about Typee or Omoo. Anyway, it is what I thought of when I saw these (CLICK FOR PICTURE), which I then found out are affectionately called Kaebul, or, well, dog penis. They are some sort of sea creature, I have not identified just what yet, though I am thinking it is a form of sea cucumber. Well, this was one of the live dishes at tonight's party, though they did cut it up just before serving it with the live seacucumber and the live octopus and all the sashimi and assorted other seafoods (like sea squirt and various shells). Anyway, like the octopus, it has no flavor other than the sauce. And the Sea Cucumber, despite looking really slimy and soft, isn't soft at all, its like chewing on lightly softened cartilage.

Anyway, enough of the live dinners, though we did see two fresh-water eels escape down into the sewer today from a bowl in front of a shop. They leaped over the rim, wriggled and writhed around the ground, found a crack in the sidewalk and slipped into the sewer. Now if this was New York City, there would be stories of giant eels slipping in through the toilets and eating people...

Anyway, my time in Kwangju is drawing to a close soon, then it is off to the big city (Seoul), leaving all the small town (1.4 million people) charm behind. I was looking at the voting pattern of the recently finished election earlier this week, and it seems that, despite the attempts to end regionalism, it is still clearly there, though perhaps in a slightly different form, but from what I hear, Seoul area had been shifting to the more "liberal" parties for at least the past election or two. It leaves the east coast for the conservatives. This may have something to do with heavy industry in the east and agriculture or modern tech industry in the west, the farmers going for the reformist candidates to stop being "oppressed," the modern techies going for the new younger politicians, and the industrial heartland going for the more conservative folks, which is interesting, considering that in most places labor would consider going with the folks that used to be labor activists, the more liberal parties in Korea. Something I will have to look into further. Until then, here is the Korea Herald's take on the face of regionalism in the April 15 elections. I wonder if there is anything to note about the similarity of the current voting pattern with this variation on a map of the three kingdoms period of Korean history, with the Uri Party winning back all of Paekche, or if this is just reading too much into things...