Thursday, November 26, 2009

First real culture shock..

We went to the North Beach section of San Francisco to get an Italian dinner. I ordered my chicken parmigiana and we thought a glass of wine would be nice to go with it. I ordered a nice Riesling and the waiter turned to me and asked, "could I see some ID please?". ID? What ID? They took my Korean ARC at the airport in immigration when I left Incheon, I left my passport in my hotel room, and my Vermont license was sitting in my jewelry box in Boston, expired, over a year ago. "How about a photocopy of my passport?" I asked, since I carry that around with me when I'm out of the country at all times, just in case. "Sorry, ma'am, I can't serve you tonight."

What a far cry from Korea where I'm fairly certain you could get served in your high school uniform at the right place. Oh well, I just saved myself $8.00 on a glass of wine I didn't really need.


Since we're on the topic of culture shock, though I'm feeling there is a severe lack of convenience stores in this country. Where's my Family Mart on every corner???

2 comments:

  1. In SF your best luck would have been drug stores on the corner. They usually have all the kwick-i-mart stuff.

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  2. I remember that after leaving Japan!!

    First night out all I had was my passport. The server had no idea what I was holding and whether or not it was legal identification...

    It was a small town in Indiana. It happens.

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