The first thing I did after landing in Buenos Aires wasn't to unpack or rest. It was to eat. I had spent weeks researching, saving restaurant pins in Google Maps like treasures, ready to taste the city. But when I walked out, stomach growling, I found shutters pulled down. Lunch had ended. At three in the afternoon, everything was closed.

I hadn't read about that part — the long pause between lunch and dinner. In Korea, we have a saying: samsi sekki (삼시세끼), three meals a day, taken at steady times. Morning at seven, lunch at noon, dinner at seven. Restaurants back home are open almost constantly, some even twenty-four hours. The idea that I could be locked out of food, trapped between mealtimes, felt like a betrayal of the body.

Dinner in Buenos Aires wouldn't begin until eight. Eight!

I paced the city like a restless child, too hungry to wait, too new to know where exceptions might be found. I managed to find a seat at a small local spot and learned my lesson: eating is not only about what is on the plate, but also when the plate arrives.

Spain taught me that "late" is only a matter of perspective. In Málaga, we slipped into a restaurant around ten at night, thinking we'd missed our chance. Instead, the place was buzzing. Children still awake. Families laughing. Plates arriving steadily. It wasn't a bar crowd — it was life unfolding at a different hour. What felt unusual to me was perfectly ordinary there.

In the Netherlands, we discovered a new rhythm — dinner at six, sharp. Children already home from school, families gathered at the table, and by eight the neighborhood grew quiet. Only a difference of two hours from what I knew. But when you're traveling, those hours can mean the difference between being fed and being stranded with nothing but your hunger.

Korea, by contrast, feels like constant abundance. In practice, samsi sekki often means three warm meals: breakfast with soup and rice, lunch with stew, dinner with grilled meats or something bubbling. My husband, raised in a Northern European tradition, still surprises me with his idea of dinner. A plate of cold cuts and bread. Efficient, yes. But to me, a meal should steam, sizzle, or simmer.

Learning from experience, I began making reservations and showing up on time. Sometimes five or ten minutes early, waiting outside until the restaurant opened exactly on the hour. I was often the first to arrive. I didn't mind.

In my twenties and thirties, dinner at seven felt perfectly aligned with the rhythm of American cities. Now, in my forties, I've grown comfortable being the first diner through the door — home by eight, winding down with a book. My appetite hasn't changed as much as my sense of time.

No matter where I travel, I circle back to the comfort of samsi sekki. Soup steaming at breakfast, rice at noon, something grilled or bubbling for dinner. It's a rhythm that holds me, even as I learn to bend with other clocks.

Buenos Aires, Málaga, the Netherlands, Korea — each one taught me that food is never just food. It is a schedule, a heartbeat, a culture. And hunger is never just appetite. It is shaped by the clock on someone else's wall.