"A nine! a nine?" the shopkeeper cried in astonishment after I told him my shoe size. He looked at me with an expression that seemed to ask "are you even human?" I only wanted to try on the cute and incredibly inexpensive boots he was selling - they were $7.50!! But alas my monstrous feet got in the way. This second incident at a Korean shoe store signaled the death knell of my shoe-buying desires. Its really quite tragic because, as I mentioned in an earlier post, they have adorable shoes. But those beautiful ballet flats and elegant boots are forever beyond my grasp because I have German / Norwegian blood in me and those illustrious ancestors bequeathed their enormous feet to me. Sigh.
Besides the shoe-incident, it was a fun and successful shopping excursion. On Sunday after church Aaron and I went to "Fashion Street" in Seoul. Tiny boutiques, mostly selling women's clothing are cramped together on a few narrow and somewhat dirty streets across from a university. There were clothes stores, shoe stores, hat stores, and stores with American imported brands like Calvin Klein and Hollister. Our guidebook had promised a place to buy one of kind designer pieces for affordable prices. I'm not sure about the designer part, but the prices were great. I found a very nice black coat for under $60 and brown tights for $5. Everbody in Seoul wears tights and every tiny little street side vendor sells them.
Koreans have a fetish for the "I woke up this morning and threw all the cleans clothes I had left on-look" I've also noticed a Western / country theme - plaids, brown leather, ruffled shirts, floral patterns. Neither look really works for me so I didn't really have much luck besides the coat, but it was fun just to walk around the neighborhood which was full of stores, restaurants, and trendy college kids. If only Hillsdale had been in a big city :)