Restaurant at the End of the Road

I hadn't been there during my first seven months in Korea, put off by the 'Couple Seat' signs and shielding red curtains.

Roxanne suggested going in. My normal restaurant was closed, and cold closed in around the warmth of our breath. We passed under hanging lanterns, and pressed the buttons on the automatic door.

A board offered instructions in Korean and English, but we were still confused. There was a machine we had to buy meal tickets from. We looked at it until a Korean man came in, and memorised the options he chose.

Tickets in hand, we peered at the anonymous curtains. I looked around one and saw a kind of mini alleyway, with people eating soup on sectioned-off stools.

'I can't see any couple seats,' I said.

We went into another alley and sat either side of a small wood divider. A man sat alone at the end of the row. There were curtains in front of our booths. I pressed a call button and a waiter opened my curtain, explaining I needed to fill out an order slip.

I didn't know what I was ordering, only that I could choose between standard and spicy, and that I had the option of extra calcium.

'Are you going for extra calcium?' laughed Rox.

'Nah, I had a glass of milk this morning. '

Roxanne's soup came with a pile of white powder floating in the centre, whereas mine didn't.

'Is that Calcium?' I asked.

'Yes,' she said, mixing it in.

'You should have tried it by itself. '

The waiter pulled the curtains back down and we ate with the divider for company. I was grateful for its' protection when noodles dangled embarrassingly from my mouth.

After eating I took the divider down. We talked happily, and I wondered what more tastes of the strange I could find in the normalcy that had become Seoul.