Korean food is full of surprises. If you thought you’ve tried it all, think again… Unless you have already tried live octopus (산낙지), a delicious dish seemingly served “alive”. The octopus is actually and fortunately dead, but it seems as though the nerves still want to communicate something to the diner. The video below shows my own experience of eating live octopus in Seoul (safe for work but not for sensible stomachs).

If anything, the taste would be akin to eating a block of ocean, if such thing were to exist. Digestion of the live octopus was far from easy… But a few months after leaving Korea, I somehow started missing that strange dish! If you ever visit Korea, I recommend trying eating live octopus and other local foods hard to find in other countries (such as sundae, a sausage made with pig intestines); at best you have a pleasant experience, at worst you will have funny stories to bring back home!