The Clothing Issue

As many of you know, I have finally been paid. Now that I have this money I am looking to expand my wardrobe. I have been on a five-shirt rotation now for some time. I decided to go shopping at Cinus, a mall that is a fifteen minute walk from my apartment. They have all kinds of great clothing stores there, such as POLO, Lacoste, Calvin Klein and so on. First I decided to look into some shoes because my running shoes are starting to get a little worn down. I cannot clearly describe to you the faces of the store owners when I walked in looking for shoes. I wear a size 13 in the U.S. which is average. That is 31cm, which is the standard of foot measurement in Korea. They looked at my feet and shook their heads before I had a chance to even look. Not that it really mattered because their feet are so small that I could not tell if I was looking at men's or women's shoes (except for some of the more obvious color schemes). So long story short there is no hope of my buying shoes in Daejeon, at least it's not worth trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Next, I decided to move on to clothing. This would prove to be equally as daunting as the search for footwear and for the same reason. I had no idea what I was looking at. I would be looking at clothes and then a woman would come up next and start looking as well. This occured when I was looking at jeans and some unisex-styled oxfords at the POLO store. When I did find men's clothing, I found that many of the sizes were quite different. There is nothing here that I could even slide my arm into, much less get buttoned across the chest. So I am up the creek with out a paddle. I have heard that I can get sizes pretty easily in Seoul but man is that a pain just to get some clothes. What if I need to return something?

KICKS ASS: Tomorrow is Market Day at my academy. I get to goof around with everyone and not really work or anything. It's like a party with food and refreshments where kids can buy all kinds of book fairish things.

SUCKS ASS: I have to cook one of the desserts. I found out, like most other things, the night before and as I was walking out the door at the end of the day.