Yeongdeok Cultural Trip

Happy new year! So I know this post about my cultural trip is coming in a little late but the holiday season has been crazy, so excuse the unpunctual updating.

In the TaLK program, we get "cultural money" which means we can spend it on things that allow us to experience or learn about Korean culture. This semester my coteacher Bella and I had no idea what we wanted to do so it was left up to the decision of our mentor teacher Anthony, and he made a great choice. We rented a car and drove east to the province of Gyeongsangbuk-do to the fishing town of Yeongdeok along with another TaLK scholar and his mentor teacher and coteacher from a school in our area. The journey took about four hours each way but it was worth it! The town seemed relative small but when we drove down to the main harbour - holy smokes! It was a beautiful day, we were next to the ocean and there were seafood shops everywhere.

And what kind of seafood is Yeongdeok known for? Crabs. A lot of crabs, especially snow crabs. It's even the town's mascot and there were statues of  crabs everywhere. Let me allow the pictures to do the talking:

Giant crab statue over a crab restaurant.

 

Massive seafood market.

View of the harbour from our restaurant.

This is the massive shopping basket of crabs we picked to eat

Bring on the crabs.

The devastation after we ate.

The snow crabs we got were delicious - they were so fresh and sweet and thinking about them now is making me want more. We didn't have too much time to spend there since the commute was so long but we did go to see a lighthouse with an iconic crab claw after we ate and took some pictures next to the beautiful east coast of Korea.

I'm really glad I got to visit Yeongdeok as part of my culture trip this semester. I don't think I would've gotten a chance to go there on my own since I had no idea what it was about at all. We have plans to try and go down there again to eat snow crabs before I return to Canada. If you are on the east coast of Korea and want to try some amazing seafood, definitely visit Yeongdeok - you won't be disappointed!