Standing out....

A teacher named Chris and I went out for a Korean lunch today. He's a pretty tall fellow, I'd say 6'2" or so, with pasty white skin, a head that glistens after he Bicks it every morning, and a southern drawl. His height and bald head usually attracts a few stares or comments while we are out, but today, as we ate lunch in traditional Korean style, we got more snickers than usual. First of all, traditional Korean meals are eaten sitting pretzel style on the floor on pretty low tables. We must have looked pretty uncomfortable trying to sit pretzel style for over half an hour. After about 5 minutes I wasn't able to sit still and must have resembled one of my five year olds that has to pee but is holding it in. Chris was even more of a spectacle because his knees barely fit under the table and he would bump it every time he moved, making everything on the table shake.
We ordered by picture, a style of ordering that we are becoming quite accustomed but is still full of surprises. Is that egg in there? Does this look like rotten spinach to you? Or, my personal favorite, what the hell is this? Well, today we ordered something that looked like ham soup. The soup that came out was pig, just not the cut I thought it would be. Apparently, hot dogs and Spam are considered traditional Korean food. That's right, we ate hot dog and Spam soup for a Korean lunch. He thought it tasted like on of those Ham Top Ramen packets mixed with soy sauce. I thought it more closely resembled spicy Ketchup in Spam juice. Needless to say, there we were: two white guys in ties, terribly uncomfortable, fumbling our way through our hot dog and Spam soup.
But that wasn't the worst part. As we were laughing about our situation (and the people around were laughing at us), Chris happened to spill a spoonful on his bright white shirt. Since costumer service is incredible here, the tiny and ancient Korean waitress immediately came out with a hot towel and started rubbing him like a mother trying to clean a child's face. Another younger waitress followed suit, this time bringing out two adult size bibs for Chris and I. They insisted that we put them on, which in itself attracted the attention of the restaurant. So there we were, two white guys with shaved heads in white shirt and ties, eating hot dog and Spam soup, fidgeting like 5 year olds, wearing adult sized bibs. Man o man, I love this country.