Anyway, at some point during that night my right heel lost its sole. I didn't discover this until a few days after when I was putting my heels back into the cupboard to find the right heel's bottom looking worn and gross.
I needed to take a visit to the shoe repair huts.
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| After a good night out, and after shoe repair ㅋㅋㅋ |
I never thought that I would ever use those shoe repair huts during my time in Korea. I highly doubted that I would wear any sort of stiletto heel around Korea, therefore decreasing my chances in having a broken heel during a night out. Never thought I would end up losing a sole.
But hey it happened. These heels were bought from Myeongdong for 50,000₩ in some market-style store. Kind of expensive, but I was desperate back then for some clubbing heels. Luckily they were comfortable, they hurt during the first night out, but after it never hurt me at all! Maybe because I was tipsy during the following night outs.
This made me realise why Korea needed so many of these huts. Many of them are labelled with '구두', which means 'heels'. Because so many women here wear heels, and I bet a majority of them purchase their heels from the market stores, which means lower quality. Additionally the streets of Seoul aren't exactly heel friendly with its rocky streets, hills, and many bar drains.
The internet said that shoe repair huts could typically be found anywhere. But I never noticed any in Anam. I had a feeling I would have a better chance if I headed towards the city center, even though it would've cost a bit more.
So I decided to take the lone heel with me one day when I was heading out to Jonggak and Myeongdong. Whilst looking for a place to eat in Jonggak I ended up passing 2 huts. So I knocked on the door on one of them, took out my shoe, pointed at the missing sole and used my lame elementary school level Korean (mixed in with some English) to ask when he will be done fixing it and I will come back for it later.
He said it would take 20 minutes to repair, so I went to Pizza Hut, ate and returned.
The repair cost me 4,000₩.
Perhaps he charged me more because I was a foreigner, or maybe because it was Jonggak - a business district. But 4,000₩ can sound overpriced for this type of heel repair since all he did was cut out a bit of sole material, glue and nail it on. Sounds like something I could do myself. Regardless, I believe it's worth it, and cheap. Especially since I'm from England where shoe repair huts are non-existent. And I'm pretty sure getting your shoe fixed in England requires a large sum of money, so it's just better to buy a new pair of heels.
For 4,000₩ it looks well attached at the very least, despite the weird look of the exposed nails.
There are around 3 huts near Jonggak Station, and 1 just outside the Northern end of Myeongdong near Coffine Gurunaru. About a week later in Anam I found another hut located across the street from the Alive Gositel (near Korea University station) - damnit! There was another one as well down Anam street, but instead of its usual sturdy metal hut structure, it looked more like a lopsided green tent. This one could be found hidden somewhere across the street from Jaws Food and TOM N TOMS.
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| The annoying protruding nail on my new heels! |
It was the last pair in store as well.
Is this how a heel's sole is attached to all heels globally?!
P.S.
I've been AWOL since mid-Janurary because the Winter Korean classes were intense, I went on a 11 day trip to Daegu, Busan, Jeju Island and Tokyo in February, and my life just got busier because I felt the need to do out-and-about stuff before school started.
A post(s) about my 11 day Winter Adventure will hopefully be posted soon.
*hides the 5 other posts queued on the draft list*
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