Sorry, I'm eating

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Sorry I haven't written in a while - also sorry there will be no pictures accompanying this blog - but once school started, it's gotten a lot more difficult to keep up with the writings, especially now since I put all my pictures on facebook, you can see what I've been doing and read the captions (that I just put up there per request of Juliet 😊 ).

so there's one difference that always sticks out in my mind, and that's restaurants and ordering food:
1) You are never seated at a table, you may be led to a certain room or part of the restaurant, but you are always allowed to pick your seat.
2) If you're in a restaurant (other than getting street food) the wait staff will stand next to you, pen and paper in hand, waiting for you to order. Sometimes you have to apologetically wave them away if you can't decide. I actually had a Thai person today tell me how exchange students can never decide what they want to eat lol. Thai people go to a certain restaurant to have a certain type of food and usually know exactly what they want once they walk in, or at least a glance at the menu will tell them what's generally served at that restaurant and then they order what they want.
3) You can basically order whatever you want even if it's not on the menu. Not ANYTHING, but just about everywhere has Phad thai and Tom Yum soup even if it's not on the menu, and they can all give a fried egg or omlet on the side.
4) When you order water, you'll get one bottle, even if there are two other people with you, you get one bottle and three cups lol. They think it's really strange when each person orders their own bottle of water.
5) If you buy your food from a stand, or a bar, or coffe counter - unless you take it to go, you aren't supposed to pay until after you eat. Actually, even when you order to go, you don't pay until you get your food. Sometimes I have no idea how the street vendors remember what you ordered, but somehow they manage. You order a bowl of soup, or some Phad thai, sit down and eat for 20-30 minutes and then go back up to the stand and they tell you exactly how much you owe.
6) The wait staff at restaurants don't come around and check on your table periodically and you have to call them over to give you a check. It's considered rude in America when you snap at your waitress/waiter or wave at them to get their attention, but here that's the only way you will EVER get them to come to your table.
7) They don't split checks. If you're eating with 5 other people, you will get one big check for the whole table and it's up to you to split the money and pay for what you ordered. Makes it really complicated when the receipt is in Thai! If that happens we usually just split the bill evenly among us.
8) Thai people eat with a spoon and fork. It was really hard for me to figure out how to do it at first, it felt so awkward! You hold your spoon in your dominant hand and scoop food onto it with your fork. Now I feel weird if I eat with my fork!
9) Cleanliness is not as big a thing here. Unless you're at a really high end restaurant, there will always be flies and gnats and possibly Mosquitos and even a cockroach or two. Thai people just laugh it off and continue eating, no big deal 😊 may pen rai 😊
10) I'm trying to think of a tenth thing about restaurants, just to even out this list... Oh! So they don't cook all the food at the same time and bring it out all at once like they do in America, you get first what gets made first. Sometimes if you're in a large group, one person will already be done eating by the time the last person gets their food.

I've been wanting to write about restaurants for a while now, every time I go it's just such a different experience! Everything about it is different! Just about each and every aspect, except that, of course, it's a restaurant lol

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