Language problems

Not being able to read anything, hardly able to find someone to have a conversation with or to ask for information. 

Today: After a beautiful ride from one river valley to another we have landed in a motel. Motel? The reception desk consists of a small sliding window at the height of my belly where a woman shows five fingers to indicate that the room will cost Won 50.000 (€ 40,--) and hands over the key after sliding the creditcard through the slot. No pin code or signature required, payment accepted. Rooms mostly are nice to very good. No breakfast or restaurant in the house, but free coffee, a water cooker, a computer, a tv, a fridge with some free drinks, free wifi, and 4 too small towels. A convenience store is never far.

Then, later, dinner time. The lady waves her hand in a certain direction. We don't like this restaurant: traditional Korean, low tables, guests squatting on the floor. We are not made for that, we cannot sit like that and eat without feeling pain, becoming stiff and falling over. After a while we see another possibility, could be a restaurant. We walk in and when I ask "Eat?" while making suggestive gestures the woman at the counter says "Chicken". We answer: "OK". Her next question is: "Beer?", pointing at a beer tap. Wow, a beer tap, the first time to have a draught beer after Nagasaki, a month ago. Another: "OK". That's the whole conversation. Two minutes later we both get 500 ml of cold beer, ten minutes later a big dish of deep fried pieces of chicken, battered, with a small cole-salad and some radish are put on the table. Chopsticks are in the box on the table, as well as paper tissues. So this is what we had ordered. You never know beforehand.

It's quite a job to eat all the chicken. After having finished we walk up to the counter and the lady presents us a calculator, digits showing 22.000 (€ 17,29). The creditcard slides through the slot, again no code or signature required, the ticket comes out and that's it. We call on the convenience store for a beer to take to our room, do some reading, blogging, whatsapping and then: bed-time.