Santiago Feria and Pulpo Gallego

Another busy week comes to an end. After two set-backs when the battery in my laptop ran out of juice twice, I've managed a full 24 hour run through of the latest code and this allows me to get onto the next stage of a current project.

This week the fair has come to Santiago and the big-wheel in the central park, the Alameda, can be seen from everywhere in the city. After a goodbye dinner with some Korean friends we headed there on Thursday evening and took a stroll around the park with the hoardes of fair-goers, the smell of freshly fried churros and candy-floss mixing with the petrol smells from the engines driving the rides and the sounds of screaming kids. From the top of the big wheel you get a stunning view of the Cathedral, although the wheel spins at a startling speed, giving little time to enjoy the view.

The dynamism at the fair also gave a good chance to try out some rather tricky shots of people in the rather unevenly lit situation. This one of a good friend, and fellow photography enthusiast came as an unusual but rather pleasing shot:

After this the group went off to see a concert (one of many this week) given by one of Spain's top female pop singers. I might have gone had it not been for the fact that I simply can't stand Spanish popular music. Other Spanish music I can enjoy a great deal, but the pop which is played constantly on the radios in the cafes I frequent drives me crazy - the melodramatic female voices and lyrics grating on me like fingernails down a blackboard. So, I ducked out early and headed home.

Friday saw another first when my US couchsurfer suggested we try and get hold of an octopus to cook, Galician style. An hour of boiling the beast later and we had a reasonable rendition of the most popular dish in this region of Spain, together with pimientos de Padrón and a revuelto of asparagus and mushrooms. Together with guests from Columbia, South Africa, Russia, and another American, we ended up with a pretty successful meal though I now realise how subtle the timing of octopus is.

Today I've spent back in the cafe working on code, but have a fantastic meal promised tonight by a Taiwanese couchsurfer who is here with his Japanese friend. Having taken a two year cooking course, this should be quite a meal, and together with the Latvian and Swede due to arrive here some time tonight, it looks like being another thoroughly international evening.

Anyway, this leaves me with some more time to continue these code wars, so I should get on....

A new dimension in culinary delights

A short post as there's still lots of work to get done before I leave here in just over two weeks.

Last night I finally got around to trying a dish I'd been promised by a Korean friend for a while. It turns out that it's not difficult to find around Wudaokou where there is a huge population of Korean students.

The dish is called San Nak Ji and is an octopus based dish, in fact it's just raw octopus. Nothing particularly strange about eating raw octopus which I've had many times in Japanese restaurants. However, San Nak Ji is still moving, on the plate, in your chopsticks, in the dipping sauce, in your mouth. The suckers make it pretty difficult to pick up off the plate, especially with the Korean style metal chopsticks. You dip the pieces in a chilli sauce and then eat. You don't feel them moving much in your mouth but they do stick to your tongue and palate as you're eating them. The suckers can be really rather strong.

Because the tentacles are detached, I certainly wouldn't count this as eating a living creature. Though some may think this is a particularly barbaric act, I would claim that the more you remember that your food was once a living being and don't take this fact lightly, rather than prepackaging everything so that you don't have to think of the horrors of the slaughterhouse or the terrible conditions that your Sunday lunch has had to endure, the better. I am in favour of choosing free-range where possible. Sadly in China this is not an easy task and would certainly mean that I would never eat out.

Anyway, San Nak Ji is worth a try and goes well with a good cold Soju. My camera batteries didn't work so no video from me. I will try and return before I leave and get a personal video of the events. In the mean time you can take a look at a Youtube example of a similar meal. (Obviously do not watch this if you think the sight of writhing tentacles may cause you to be put off your next meal).