So you have gone through the options of food that is available and arrived at the restaurant of your choice. Assuming that this restaurant is Korean (since some of these rules of etiquette do not apply at the Western restaurants), what is the first thing you do? Take off your shoes. As most of the Korean restaurants are floor seating, the first thing that you do when you arrive is take off your shoes and place them in the cupboard/ledges provided.

Now that you are barefoot (and wearing socks - bare barefeet are frowned upon) you are taken to your table. Pull out a cushion from under said table and seat yourself cross-legged upon it. I won't lie, cross-legged seating is one of the biggest problems that I have with sitting on the floor. Sure, it is fine for the first ten minutes or so, but thereafter my legs start cramping, my feet go numb and my back starts aching from lack of support.

So you are seated (rather uncomfortably). It is time to order. There will be one menu for the table to share if there is a menu at all. Once it has made its rounds, you are ready to order. But where is the waitress? No need to wait for her to come to you. Instead you can just ring what I like to refer to as the Yogi-yo bell. Why do I call it this? Well, if there isn't one, you can just shout out "YOGI-YO!" ("HERE!") and it has the same effect - the waitress comes running and takes your order. Far more convenient than waiting around for someone to come to you.

You will shortly be brought a bottle of water, if one isn't already on the table. This isn't bottled water, but it is filtered (it is highly disputed, but commonly accepted that you cannot drink Korean tap water). The pouring of the water is a ritual in itself, and I will take a moment to explain it. The youngest person at the table (usually me) should be the pourer, pouring for the oldest first and making their way down to themselves. When everyone else at the table has been poured for, the youngest must place the bottle down and someone else must pour for them. It is rude to pour for yourself, and it is also rude to ask someone to pour for you. When pouring you must place one hand to your wrist or to your heart, and when receiving you must hold your cup with two hands.

The whole pouring ritual is based on the ideal of respect which is very much enforced in Korean culture and shown through a lot of Korean traditions. Everything is about respect, and especially respect for your elders and their seniority. Another place where this respect pops up in the dining process is when someone who is older than you tells you to do something, eat something or drink something, you must do it. I had a particular problem with this custom when I went out to dinner with my Taekwondo masters who insisted that I drink soju. They tried to insist that I eat something, but I was too full after my samgyetang dinner with Amy and Chanel, so I refused. I could not, however, refuse the drink as well, and we all ended up leaving the restaurant being far from sober on a school night which I was not too impressed with.

Once you are finished eating, drinking and chatting, you may want to ask for the bill. You will be surprised to find that it is probably already on your table. This is a custom that happens all over the country in most restaurants that you will go to (Korean and Western). In most Korean restaurants, there will be a set menu form at every table and when you order something they will merely tick it off on the form and you will bring that with you when you pay for the meal. In many Western restaurants, they will print your bill and bring it to you shortly after you ordered the meal, which makes ordering anything else more of a pain. In these cases, I find it best to let them know in advance if I intend to have dessert or anything other than the meal that I just ordered.

Paying the bill is also a little different from what I am used to back home. In South Africa, you would leave the money with the bill and someone would come to fetch it and bring you your change. If you paid by card, they would sometimes request that you come to the till or if you were in a hurry and wanted to get everything sorted out quickly, you would go to the till to pay yourself. Here, you always pay at the front and will never leave your money with the bill to be taken away by a waiter. This isn't the only different thing about paying bills here either. Back home, a waiter's main income came from tips. Here, it is seen as impolite to tip, and it is rarely done. Occasionally a tip will be added to the bill at an 'upclass' restaurant or for a big meal, but you will always be notified if that is the case.

So now I have told you some of the etiquette regarding eating out here. Coming soon will be blogs on customs in the home, while traveling, in Seoul and at school.