Being Ripped Off In Korea

I met with Donald and asked him if he wanted to eat in the market.  I haven't experienced eating at an outdoor market so I wanted to try it out. We went to this one grill stand that looked popular and as I sat down on the patio furniture and saw that umbrellas were the only roof this restaurant had, it was very charming and authentic. So we ordered from a front display of all the meats and vegetables (picture below)

The suction cups on the tentacle will actually suction to your inner mouth as you eat it

I ate live squid eyeball. Not too bad

***Behind Story***

As Donald and I was eating, I asked him how he has survived in Korea and Asia for so long and his response was not what I was expecting.

Donald said, "The only way you will stay sane in Korea is if you put yourself first. Even though it goes against the golden rule, there are just way too many people in Korea that try to walkover you and if you aren't thinking about yourself first you will feel like everyone is against you and you will go insane". 

Interesting words to hear from Donald because he is one of the nicest and most optimistic guys you'll meet.

***Back to the main story****

Once we were done I yelled for the server and asked her to total our bill. She replied 62,000W ($62 CDN). At first I thought my Korean must be bad because I heard her say 62,000W ($62 CDN), unfortunately it was exactly what she said. For all of you reading this, in Korea having a $62 bill is like having a $400 bill between 2 people at Boston Pizza (fucking impossible). I looked back at the women and said in my broken Korean,

"Do you think, I'm retarded, Im not paying that!!!!!"

I thought to myself, "For God's sake this restaurant has umbrellas for a roof, their is no way that the our meal was that expensive". See how quickly that charming/authentic umbrella turned into something negative. The foreigner Youn Park might have just paid the amount but the more jaded Korean Youn Park did not want to get walked over. So after about 10 minutes of yelling Donald and I just put $50 (total) down and walked away. Some of you might be asking how can there be such a problem with the bill just add up what you ordered. Here is the problem.... this market restaurant didn't have the price listed anywhere. They do this on purpose so they can charge what the feel. I guess they thought because we were foreigners they would over charge us. I still feel like $50 was too much. $30 would have been right.

It was upsetting to see that, but I also enjoyed the experience of fighting back for the first time in Korea.