Days passed just like that in Sokcho.
Children tend to get bored quickly.
Even if they had a toy they were playing with just yesterday, they suddenly lose interest.
And with the appearance of a new toy that catches their eye, their attention shifts in an instant.
Of course, there are some kids who stick with just one toy for a long time.
However, even for those kids, if they play in the sea every day, it’s only natural to get tired of it.
Yeah.
This is the story of me and Siyeon.
“I’m bored….”
“Me too.”
As I sympathized with Siyeon’s complaints, I lay on the cool, spacious floor of the vacation home, counting the days until we could go home.
In fact, I got bored with the sea around the fourth day.
Playing in the water was fun for a day or two, but with only one playmate, no matter how enjoyable it was…
Just the sea alone wasn’t enough to fill the two-week period with fun.
So my second choice turned to food.
All I had eaten since arriving in Sokcho were instant foods from the fridge and chicken gangjeong.
Coming all the way to Sokcho to eat chicken and instant foods that I could get anywhere?
It felt a bit disappointing, so I decided to go explore the market.
The goal was to expand Siyeon’s culinary horizons.
We couldn’t just eat delivery food all the time, with so much food in the world, we couldn’t keep revolving around chicken, pizza, jajangmyeon, and hamburgers.
If we could venture into sashimi or something, it could lead to ordering sushi at home later on…
Thus, rationalizing various excuses in my mind…
The truth is, I just came out to find something I wanted to eat.
‘If I can solve Siyeon’s meals at the same time, that would be good…’
So we took a taxi to a market in Sokcho.
Despite having served in some hateful place in Gangwon-do, I had never bothered to visit the Sokcho market.
The hope of soldiers wishing that their base would be nearby swallowed by Gangwon-do’s market, there were even some spinach-like outfits here and there.
Seeing people out in the daylight on a weekday, it didn’t seem like an overnight or a late weekday outing.
If it were the day of vacation departure, there wouldn’t be a chance they’d want to stay in Gangwon-do at this hour…
‘Is this the last day of vacation return?’
That’s the only remaining choice.
I shook my head, feeling kind of pity for a topic I could normally never empathize with.
It seemed Siyeon’s gaze caught mine, for her small finger pointed to the soldier we had just seen.
“Oh! It’s a soldier uncle!”
‘So he looks like an uncle after all.’
A man won’t be called an uncle unless he’s pretty handsome, usually until high school.
Once out of the school uniform, even an innocent child’s honest eyes cruelly label them as an uncle.
Well, they call each other uncles even within the same unit.
After the soldier passed, my view was filled again with the market’s array of foods.
Public officials were talking about squid sundae, mulhoe, and chicken gangjeong.
Along with that, like other coastal areas, Gangwon-do had various seafood like shrimp and crab.
And everywhere in the market were sweet rice donuts and twisted doughnuts.
Then there was the potato pancake and the honeycomb ice cream, which I had no clue why it existed?
It’s understandable for potato pancakes and honey rice cakes to be found in every market, but honeycomb ice cream?
I really didn’t get why that was there.
“Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Shrimp over there!”
“Where? Ah, it’s right there.”
Siyeon’s choice was safe: shrimp tempura.
The puffy batter covered about two-thirds of her slim arms.
Ten of those shrimp cost ten thousand won.
I was taken aback by the cruelty of the market that didn’t even sell it as a single item, so I ordered five of each: shrimp and red crab tempura.
Moving around while eating would be tough for such a body, so we went inside a shop and sat down.
Inside, Siyeon flailed her legs from a backless plastic chair.
Before long, crispy paper-wrapped tempura was placed in a plastic basket.
White smoke that seemed to have just jumped out of oil, and the shiny flowing appearance of the fried batter.
And that distinctive oil aroma from the tempura heightened my appetite.
“Enjoy your meal-”
“Mine!”
Although shrimp tempura was something I was used to, this red crab tempura?
I had some doubts, so I picked it up with chopsticks to check it out.
It was fried in a stick shape, making me wonder if they had just stuck crab shells on and called it red crab.
‘Oh…?’
The bone-like limb of the crab.
It snagged between my teeth, melting all those suspicions away.
How to put it, if I were to describe the flavor… it was extremely sophisticated crab meat.
Though I only felt such cheap sensations, it was delicious.
Siyeon, who likes shrimp a bit more, got three shrimp tempuras and two red crab tempuras.
On my side, it was three red crab tempuras and two shrimp tempuras.
After stuffing such a hefty snack down, I wandered around the market, glancing here and there.
“Chub mackerel!”
It seemed Siyeon was just as excited by the unusual sight, pointing at the seafood in the tank of a sashimi restaurant.
“Oh, it’s a black rockfish.”
Even if I didn’t know much about fish, I recognized that one.
White prison uniform-like stripes of black and white.
The fish famous for the photo where one asks, “Are we really making cutlets with such precious black rockfish?” that you get to know first through pictures on the internet.
With Siyeon’s curiosity, we stopped for a moment in front of the sashimi restaurant’s tank.
“What’s that?”
“Sea squirt.”
“What about that one?”
“Flounder, want to try it?”
Giving names to what she pointed at one after another quelled her curiosity.
Flounder is one of the easiest for sashimi beginners, so I tossed a question to Siyeon.
When I asked if she wanted to try flounder, her expression became like ‘Are we eating that?’ as she pulled her pointing finger back.
As expected, she still saw it as something to look at rather than eat.
If she started grabbing the fresh slices of flounder and dipped them in soy sauce or vinegar, it wouldn’t look merely like a spectacle anymore.
Unfortunately, it seemed unlikely I’d get to eat sushi when I went back home.
If I had dragged Siyeon into the sashimi restaurant to give her something delicious before eating the tempura, would the outcome have been different?
In the end, I couldn’t introduce her to raw food, and we ended up eating squid sundae or Abai sundae.
Once we stuffed ourselves with the potato pancakes sold by piece, I asked Siyeon again.
“Is there anything else you want to eat?”
“Ashuk cream.”
“That one?”
“Yeah.”
[Honeycomb Ice Cream: 6,000 won]
[Honey Rice Cake Ice Cream: 6,000 won]
[Sand Ice Cream: 6,000 won]
[Honey Bee Bread Ice Cream: 6,000 won]
[Honey Ice Cream: 4,000 won]
[Pure Ice Cream: 3,000 won]
‘Damn it.’
I cursed in my mind as I saw the prices of these tourist specialty items which threw out all conscience.
Just a vanilla ice cream wrapped in the pretense of pure ice cream, this kind of marketing?
Truly impressive.
Anyway, the honeycomb that once set the internet ablaze.
Munching with Siyeon on a trend that had long since cooled off, I savored the sweetness that made my tongue numb.
Incredibly sweet vanilla ice cream.
Drizzled generously with honey syrup, topped with a piece of honeycomb thick with honey…
Creating a one-way ticket to the emergency room for diabetes at six thousand won, like a terrified candy apple.
The two of us shared ice cream totaling twelve thousand won.
I was dumbfounded by the price of a dessert equivalent to about half a chicken…
But seeing Siyeon’s joyful expression, I decided not to think about health, indulging my youthful body.
As we exited the market, I scooped the ice cream from a plastic cup with a plastic spoon.
The intense, strong artificial sweetness enveloped my mouth.
‘Sweet.’
“Mari, Mari! Is this really honeycomb?”
Could it be she thought it was too precious to eat?
Siyeon, who hadn’t even taken her first spoonful, was asking.
Nodding at her question, I added explanations so that the excited Siyeon wouldn’t mess it up.
“Yeah. Honey bee home, just suck the honey and spit it out, right? Don’t swallow it?”
After leaving the market and sitting on a chair nearby, I threw out my words.
While the honey from the honeycomb is fine, the honeycomb itself is just wax.
It’s not that you shouldn’t eat it at all, but it’s not something that’s particularly good to taste.
After exploring all the tourist spots and foods in Sokcho for days, on a peaceful afternoon with no monsters in sight and a full belly,
I was startled by an unfamiliar sound knocking on the vacation home door.
Siyeon, curious about the noise, lifted her head from her seat where she was doing her vacation homework.
“Who is it?”
Getting familiar with the intercom system of the villa after fiddling around, I glanced at the monitor.
Outside the door were two women.
A girl who looked like a middle school student with short black hair and a woman with long hair…
‘That person….’
I had a memory of having seen her before, she was Venus.
I quickly ran to the villa door with short strides and opened it.
“Welcome.”
“Hello~”
As I greeted her first while opening the door, I was met with an unexpectedly lively and warm reply from Venus.
It was a warmth that made me unable to associate with the atmosphere that had been crushed at the last gathering.
Opposite her, the girl beside her timidly stepped into the villa, looking nervous.
“Um, hello…”
She was a typical nerdy style middle school student with horn-rimmed glasses.
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