Korean seafood markets are filled with the sort of edible fish that you wouldn’t see in, say, fish markets in Seattle or Normandy. It’s intense and, like in most languages, the names of fish only enhance language barriers and push translators to the brink. Some are familiar, though, but still not in our culinary past: live squid and octopus (문어) cooked alive, using its suction cups while you chew; the sudden sight of a turtle being stripped naked; raw eel; fish tanks of worm-like species without a clear face or eyes; and of course, the fake penis that Conan O’Brien, host of Conan, so elegantly held, which is hilariously called the Sea Cucumber (해삼).

Going to South Korea without going to a fish market is not much different than transferring planes in a country and claiming you have been there. Who wouldn’t want to try Sea Cucumber? Live octopus? Sora (소라)? Give a shot at Abalone Squirts (전복), or go for the dubiously titled “mix raw fish”?

Stall after stall is lined with elder Koreans, ajumas (아쭈마), coercing you into buy their more fresh and cheaper fish and shellfish. Behind them, or upstairs, sit rows and Koreans eating freshly diced up whey (외), usually from a fish creatively called “flat fish”, or Olive Flounder (광어) that was taken out of a tank, clobbered over the head two or three times by a sweet granny, then diced up (all the while the tail flopping) into a chewy, bright white fish meat that can really only have taste once it is soaked in soy sauce or even red bean paste or sesame seed oil, if you break the rules. (You can see a fantastic video on the Korean flat fish here.)

Next to the stalls and upstairs, mass quantities of soju are added to the meal, a natural pairing of chewy and fresh meet with hard alcohol, which, according to locals, also helps to kill the bacteria or formation of worms in the stomach. (Seriously.)

In South Korea, there are essentially two main fish markets: the infamous Noryangjin Fish Market (노량진 수산시장) in Seoul and the Jagalchi Fish Market (자갈치시장) in Busan. Having lived in Busan for four years, the latter one was a weekly visit. I am still unable to recall what some of that seafood was; when asking, you get a Korean word without a translation, a word without a meaning even for Koreans. Instead, one is told about how penis-shaped fish will help a man’s stamina, clam-shaped fish will help with a woman’s fertility, and then more about the effects on a man’s stamina and his erectile strength, which can be helped by this or that fish, even after a few bottles of soju. No one’s face turns red. There is no inquiring about whether or not this is an issue. It is simply the non-pharmaceutical sales advertising based on wive’s tales–most of which are actually somewhat true–pitched to Koreans and tourists alike: natural remedies for those “personal issues.”

Noryangjin, one of the largest fish markets and most visited, pre-dates the Korean War, opening in 1927 (before being moved to its current location in 1971), and started during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1905-1945).  In those tough economic days of Korea, the purpose, along with Jagalchi in Busan, was to promote the domestic fishing industry in order to lessen the burden on the agriculture industry as the population grew. Today, the market in Seoul handles half of the city’s seafood and 250-300 tons of seafood are traded each day.

(One great experience that the market offers is a live early morning market auction, starting around 3 a.m.)

Perhaps the only thing that is difficult to find is whale or dolphin meat. But that doesn’t mean it is off-the-market. Dozens of Japanese izakaya restaurants around Korea offer very high-priced whale meat–a blubbery, chewy, bland piece of meat that would make you side with Greenpeace.

Undoubtedly, there are other wonderful seaside places to find lunch. There, shellfish, mostly, is pulled from the ocean by a free-driving granny just hours before. Plates are topped with seaweed someone risked their life for by free-diving without an oxygen tank. And all the while one is sitting around a plastic table-top on seaside rocks, waves splashing on your sandals, trying not to notice the sea cockroaches sprinting at the sight of human. (One place to do that is on Jeju Island.)

Conan’s awkward language exchanges, the business-like attitude of picking out seafood, dodging mopeds and motorcycles in tight spaces, and his urge to rescue the species we just prefer not to eat once we see it alive is a daily occurrence for the traveler and expat alike in Korea, a country that never gets boring, even when shopping for lunch.