Tane verses Fish

Sunday, Brandon and I visited the Jagalchi Fish Festival here in Busan. An annual festival, thousands of Koreans (and probably dozens of Westerners) flood the well-known Jagalchi fish market for deals on fish, games, shows and general seaside revelry. You can get a basic overview of the festival here, http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/OO/OO_EN_13_1_2.jsp?cid=347370.

Besides eating our weight in crab legs, Brandon and I had at least one mini-adventure. I entered a fish catching contest where I was given a pair of wader pants, helped into an aboveground swimming pool and handed a butterfly net. Then I was told, "Catch one of those green fish."

My thank goes out to Brandon who captured some great photos as well as this video. Also, if I thought they were going to read this blog I’d thank all the locals who cheered me on and offered fish-catching advice.

Before you judge my struggle too harshly, keep in mind that these were really fast fish, and that there were only about a dozen of them in a huge tank. It wasn’t until the very last minute that I finally captured one. The secret: don’t try and bring the net up from under the fish as you might if you were trying to catch them with bare hands. Instead, spear the net down just in front of the fish so he accidentally swims into it.

In the end, the game host put a microphone in front of me and asked two great questions.

Announcer: “How do you feel?”
Tane: “Incredible…”
Announcer: “How are you going to cook it?”
Tane: “I will pan-fry him.”