1. Do not expect to wear your shoes inside a home or at traditional restaurants.
Even while you are putting your shoes on, they should never touch the floor of the house. One of my worries about traveling to Asia was that I would forget to remove my shoes and insult and disrespect my hosts and hostesses. This was one worry that was not necessary. Homes have a shoe room and you have to step up from the shoe room before entering the home. There are special shelves to place your shoes in at traditional Korean restaurants as well. At home people usually have special socks or slippers that they wear.
My first night in Korea was a real shocker for me when my host showed me the bathroom. There was a tub but nothing to keep the water in the tub. My first shower in that tub was the night I arrived, and I tried to be so careful to keep the water inside. Even while being overly cautious, I accidentally sprayed the room with bath water as I was holding the shower head (as there was no stand for the shower head, so I had to hold it). I felt so terrible about the puddle on the floor, so with no towels except mine in the room, I used the skirt I was changing out of to dry it up. The next morning when I went into the bathroom, after the kids had gotten ready for school the entire bathroom was soaked, and at that moment I knew it was an everyday occurrence to get the bathroom wet. When I finally asked my Korean friend about it, she laughed at me, and explained that their bathrooms have drains in the floor and a special fan so that the water dries up.
3. Do not expect to be given a normal sized towel for a shower.
The night I arrived in Korea my host sister's aunt handed me a hand-sized towel for my shower. My entire time at their home I never saw a bath towel. When I stayed at my host sister's house, she knew that I was used to using bath towels and was able to offer me one. Even at her home the family used hand-sized towels.
4. Do not expect to walk normally through crowds.
There are a lot of people in Seoul. If you take the subway during rush hour prepare yourself to have to push your way through to be able to get out of there. I hate crowds, and I am usually super polite, and can let people ahead of me. My polite nature had to be forgotten in the subway, and even on the street, otherwise I would have been separated from my group. I got stuck in a "human traffic jam" at the lantern festival. I was surrounded by people trying to go two different ways, and we somehow ended up stopping completely for a minute before we began to inch forward. I couldn't wait to get out of there! This picture is me and Seoung Ju celebrating escaping the human traffic jam! There was room to stretch our arms!
Let me explain. I am 24, but in Korea I am 26. Korea is a conservative, mostly Christian country. When a baby is born they are already considered one year old. With this mindset it is not surprising that abortion is illegal. So that explains one year, but how did I get two years older in Korea? People get a year older at the beginning of the year even though my birthday is at the very end (December 27). Their respect for life is something that I love about Korean culture.
This was one of my favorite Korean experiences! When dining at traditional Korean restaurants you remove your shoes near the door and sit on mats on the floor. I love sitting on the floor, my husband says the dogs sit on the couch more than I do. Even at my host sister's home we sat around a coffee table on the floor eating snacks. The picture below is one traditional Korean restaurant, I ate at.