a selection of shoes

When we moved into the rowhouse, it was pretty much furnished. We had all the necessary furniture, electronics, sheets, towels and a somewhat limited selection of kitchen and dining utensils. However, there was one item I didn't expect to inherit when we moved in......shoes.

We have the usual Korean entryway with a shoe cabinet.
It is quite handy, especially since I don't have too much room in the bedroom closet to store shoes. Even though I don't always take off my shoes when I enter, I find that friends always seem to even if you tell them it isn't necessary. Come to think of it, I always take my shoes off when I go to their homes. It just seems like the thing to do.

Anyway, the cleaning lady always takes her shoes off when she comes to clean. And we have a ready supply of slip on shoes for her to wear when needed.





These are in the downstairs bathroom.







These are in the room off of the kitchen that has the dryer in it.









These are at the back door. I think I need to get rid of them as they are starting to shed foam whenever you wear them.






These are outside one of the doors to the balcony upstairs.



For some reason, there aren't any in the upstairs bathroom. Whenever she cleans the bathrooms, she just hoses down the floor and walls with the attachment on the shower. I don't know if you remember, but I commented on this attachment in the downstairs bathroom - there isn't a shower or tub, but we still have a shower attachment on the wall. Anyway, she has a supply of shoes to put on when she goes outside to hang the sheets up to dry or to air out the bathroom rugs on the balcony railing.

Ken needed some sandals to wear to the beach, so I had the occasion recently to go into a couple of the shoe shops in Okpo. There is a multitude of slip on sandals along the street before you go in. They even have ones that have something like a dust mop on the bottom. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that but I promise one for the future. I guess you wear them around the house to keep the floor dusted. They have tons of adorable children shoes - so bright and colorful, like most of the children clothing here. Yes, these are little girl's shoes - my daughter would have gone straight to the ones with rhinestones and pearls when she was little!



One last note. For some reason, I collect little shoes. Maybe it started with wooden shoes from The Netherlands when Ken worked there. But I have added a few to my collection since we have been here. These are some shoes I got in Hong Kong at a street vendor -
they are replicas of what women wore when they had their feet bound.







I also got these in China - I don't know the significance, but I thought they were cute.


I bought these in Okpo off the back of a truck that was loaded with all sorts of straw items, like baskets and such. These are called jipsin, or traditional Korean straw shoes. They were originally worn mainly by commoners and farmers. In present day, they are still sometimes worn to funerals. This is to show respect to the deceased and also to prevent you from slipping while walking to the grave site!