How Bizarre

I had another one of those "Korea is so strange" moments the other night. Richard, the new teacher, who is seemingly normal and not the whack job I had braced myself for, (btw I stole the term whack job from my friend, Megan, and I love it), wanted to go out for a drink after work and unwind and be reassured that teaching really isn't as scary as it looks in the first week.
Anyhow we went to a place called Garten Bier, which is fantastic little bar with electronic cup holders that keep your beer ice cold. We were sitting around talking when Trey walked by, so he came into join us and shortly after that we messaged Megan and Lauren, so it turned into a nice little gathering.

A group of Korean men, in their mid twenties, came and sat at the table next to us with a bag full of take out food, a silver mixing bowl and plastic gloves. How bizarre. The one guy throws on a glove, opens a container of rice, a container of seaweed and throws them into the mixing bowl. He then proceeded to make meatball shaped balls and put them on a side dish. This went on for about fifteen minutes and we all were watching out of the corner of our eyes to see what would happen next. He finished rolling all the rice balls and then opened another container full of chicken wings (which I now know are known as fire chicken). Then all his friends put a glove and began to eat.

About fifteen minutes later they turned to us, gave us a glove and a plate with rice balls and five pieces of chicken and told us to try it. Now I know we aren't supposed to take candy from strangers, but chicken and rice seems perfectly acceptable. Trey tried it first and said it was super hot. I decided to act all macho and show the Koreans that I could handle spice just as well as the next guy and I had a piece too. It was insanely hot; burn your lips and leave them tingly for 15 minutes hot, but delicious at the same time. We then tried the rice balls which are meant to cool the heat and they were also quite good. Nobody else was brave enough to try it so Trey finished it off. We thanked the Koreans and then they went back to their own conversation, but shortly after pulled out another bag. It was a Lotteria bag, which is kind of like a Burger King restaurant, and they pulled out hamburgers and began to eat those. Now I'm not sure what I found stranger about all of this, the random eating of food in a restaurant that is not from that restaurant (kinda like eating an Outback steak in the middle of the Keg), or that they would eat such a delicious meal and polish it off with crap hamburgers.

Oh, I love Korea, there is always so much randomness happening.