I feel the team spirit, alright.

This was a rare treat, like an aligning of the planets. I was walking down the stairs, minding my own business, when I saw these “narrator-models” coming off the job and going down the stairs before me. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

So I got this shot for you all on the site – I was seriously thinking that if taking this shot wasn’t my solemn duty as Feet Man Seoul, I don’t know what would be – and ran away, wanting to giggle and cheer like a schoolboy.

I guess the girls’ “uniforms” were the denim miniskirts and 30,000 won high heel sandals that every other Korean girl in the country was wearing this summer. Still, it’s better than the silly shorts and white sock thingies. As always, remember to click on the picture to blow it up. You’ll be glad you did. And I’m starting to be sad that the summer’s over. ㅠㅠ

I had a female reader giving me advice about what this site’s true “매력” (charm) is. I think it’s posts such as these, in which I spy a lovely lass whom I first photograph, then agrees to pose for a few shots as I take a look at them and decide whether or not to then approach them to officially model for us.

The picture below is what my female friend says truly defines the site – this is the one thing that you won’t find anywhere on the web, it’s real and in the Korean street, and is innocent but yet kind of wild, since what I’m asking these girls to do is a little unusual and unbelievable.

Even thought this young lady needs to buy shoes that won’t injure her and take better care of her feet – lest she end up permanently hurting herself when she gets older – she’s got a beautiful spread and a lot of potential to make a pair of shoes look sexy, with a healthy shape that is as feminine as it is seems powerful.

Girl – you is fierce!

The thing about Korea is that women here just try harder to look good. For better or for worse, they are under more pressure to look as fly as possible all the time, so they are generally more formal, wear high heels as a rule, apply makeup to go to the corner store, covet designer labels, and spend an inordinate amount of their income trying to keep up with the new fashion trends every season. This means, that unlike men, they don’t get to wear certain shoes for 5+ years straight.

Note to the women still wearing the overlong, pointy pumps from the late 1990’s – your ajummaness is showing, in that the ajumma is defined not just by being old, but more exactly, by my “ajumma rule.” My rule postulates that the real ajumma is defined by someone who still wears the shoes that were attractive when she was still an agassi, and but she is now too practical/stubborn/cheap to want to continue keeping up with the fashion trends. So she will say – and she’d be right – “Why waste money buying all these new shoes every season? The ones I have are pretty enough!” Yes, you’re right. But you’re also officially an ajumma now.

Anyway, I was walking down the street when I spied the loveliest leggy sight walk past me at the crosswalk. I was also suddenly reminded how much there is to look at for a man on the average Korean street. Foreign male friends visiting me always remark at how good the women look here. And no, it’s not the standard “Asian fetish” thing, but more of “Did you see what she’s wearing?” or “Do girls always dress like this?”

Fortunately for me, the answer is, “yes.” And the girl who passed me was definitely just a “average” on the Korean appearance scale. But on my getting-dressed-up-means-putting-on-a-suit-once-a-year scale, Korean everyday fashion – especially for women – is pretty impressive.

Let’s be real – most Korean women (as with men) didn’t grow up playing team sports and exercise for women has only recently become an acceptable idea. So most adult women spent their childhoods thinking that jogging was going to make their calves huge, or lifting weights would make them look like Little Miss Arnold S. So you get girls who are skinny but don’t look healthy, and who have even less shape than genes would allow. Although Korean men like it, I don’t like my women looking pigeon-toed and weak, with flabby arms and legs that are still inexplicably thin. “Skinny fat” is not my thing.

But time here has changed some things, so my standards are…umm…different now, yet still pretty varied. And, as fate seems to dictate, I tend to find girls in their mid-to-late 20’s the most desirable, although girls in their early 20’s tend to show more of it off. Here’s an average late-20’s girl, just walking down the street. Would you ever get to see a single person look like this at a Walmart back home?

I’m not saying that there aren’t shapely girls back home. I’m just saying that they’re not making much of an effort to look their very best, all the time, which I don’t think is a bad thing to not be doing. But you gotta admit, Korean girls do know how to work it. Here’s a lovely “sideswipe” shot that I’m getting better much better at taking.

And here’s the standard “shoeflip” shot to round things out.

Korean summers are truly hot!

Well, dear readers!

I was enjoying the first real cool day in a long time, sitting at a convenience store, thinking on the remains of the day…when suddenly, this pert young lady starts doing a fashion show runway walk back and forth, up and down the street. It was exaggerated, like she was sashaying for some unknown camera, or doing a San Fran drag show. Either she was totally conscious of what she was doing, or completely oblivious to the power of her own girly sexiness. Maybe it was both, but the whole cheap, yet sexy Ghetto Fabulous thing was something to behold. So I slowly started reaching for my camera…and landed some amazing shots. I thought she saw me out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t seem to care and just kept talking on the phone, to whom I am pretty sure was her boyfriend. She was chewing gum and speaking in that screechy, yet babyish, yet somehow aggressiive tone that just might be the Korean equivalent of a Brooklyn or South Boston accent. Although it’s just my own thinking, I imagined her boyfriend to be the kind of guy who sits on the subway with his legs wide open, left hand hugging his crotch as he kind of sneeringly looks around. With a white tank t-shirt, to boot.

I would’ve maybe asked if she might want to model, but I was honestly afraid of – to start with – her boyfriend coming over and putting a baseball bat to my kneecap after she gigglingly mentions to him that a long-nosed foreigner had just asked her to be a model for his “web site” (I’m sure he would be thinking of something nice, with hardcore pictures of farm animals or something); second of all, I thought that she herself would be just as likely as not to give me the patented Korean girl “up-down” stare, guffaw ridiculously to herself, roll her eyes, then walk away. “1-2-3! You’re out!” I know, because it’s happened to me before. Ouch! I got to snap away several shots of her doing a runway walk past me, then doing a fashion model twirl and coming back in my direction, then off into the distance to meet her man. Dang, girl! Are you positively naughty! Or maybe it was just me imagining? Either way, one Austin Powers purr to you!

“…and knows how to uuuuuse them!”

Dang, girl! ZZ Top was definitely on my mental playlist that day.

This set of pictures is hard to categorize, but let me tell you that it was a classic case of “Napoleonic compensation”, which you see for people showing off their best feature. I’m not blaming anyone or looking gift horses in their mouths, but I’m just saying don’t continue to feel like you’re missing out on something because we don’t have faces here. Trust me. I think some of the best, most photoworthy pairs of legs and feet often don’t have much to do with the beauty of their owners, and are, much more than you’d think, standalone items. More than just that, a good portion of people who put the most energy into strutting around on higher heels and with extreme hemlines seem to be compensating for something. It’s sort of like those short guys who walk around with tight shirts and tank tops – you know the type – who make an extra effort to look ripped and manly. Personally, I think the energy is better spent on being a funny guy or telling interesting stories, but some guys put that energy into having “big guns” instead of arms. Hey, thass cool, thass cool. But it’s pretty obvious.

So that’s the situation we got here. If you were to see some face shots – and I’ve shown a few shots including faces to a few people in person – they all say that the whole effect gets ruined if faces are there. I know you all don’t believe me yet – but try to imagine from this particular set of photos what I’m trying to tell you, but can’t show you directly (but if I did, you’d nod and say, “Yeah, you’re kinda right. Seeing the face doesn’t really add to much) – but you ain’t missing anything here. I’m trying to be nice, see? To say it much simpler – the face don’t match the view from behind. The great Sir Mix-a-Lot once talked about “an LA face with an Oakland boodie.” Can I just say that we’re talking about some “Kangnam legs”, a country face, and…umm…let’s just leave boodie out of it, shall we? There are certain great aspects to be found in the Korean female form, but we all know that when it comes to boodie, we’re talking gluteus minimus, right? With some exceptions. Anyway, for defenders of Korean honor-through-beauty, don’t take this too seriously. If we didn’t think Korean girls were slammin’ in some way, this website wouldn’t be here, right?

Yes, as they say, “the Devil is in the details.”

I noticed this pair of pretty young college students strolling down the road in Hyehwa and decided to snap a few. Now, when you see a woman in a short skirt, you don’t always catch the details that make you want to look. Sometimes, a woman in a short skirt is just…a woman in a short skirt. Nothing special.

But you really haveta look. Girls who make you turn your head often have the nice shape and what length of leg to make your imagination start going, but honestly, many Korean girls aren’t really “shapely” in the sense of other women in the world. Think the country of Brazil, the boodie of Beyoncé, “crunk in the trunk.” Korean women generally have fairly unremarkable legs.

So why does it seem like girls are shaking and showing it in a way that never tends to cross my mind in the States? I see a nice view or two walking down the street in the US, but in Korea, there’s always something to look at. It’s in the details, man, and the details are what separates a UCSD SoCal girl wearing short shorts and thong beach sandals for coolness and comfort from a K-girl in Apkujung wearing strappy 3-inch heels and a miniskirt of the same length. Combine that with the other sexy accessorizing that Korean girls do, and you suddenly got a sexy package. Yes, Korean girls are generally pretty plain and I’ve heard it said that “Korean girls look better with their clothes on” – but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Because Korean girls don’t come in all the same shapes and sizes that multiculti American girls do, and generally range from a size 0 to 4 or so, generally are between a narrower height range, and also generally wear a 6 or 7, you get a common, clearer palette to work with. Yes, standing in the buff, many Korean girls are pretty unremarkable (although I didn’t say undesirable!); but you add in makeup, heels, short skirt, straight “Magic” movie star perm, sparkly handbag, and a slightly skanky top with rhinestones and the cool sunglasses – as everyday wear for many young girls, not “clubwear” that many American girls only change into specifically to go on a night out – you got something to look at, something that catches the eye. And yep – the high-heeled foot is one of those things. On this particular girl, if you think about it, it’s her shoe that brings her into the zone of something sexy worth looking at; were she wearing a pair of flip-flop thong sandals, I wouldn’t have been taking these pictures. You can see in the two close detail shots to the right and left – merely close blowups of parts of the picture above – that her clean, cute feet and well-chose white shoes combine to accentuate what is a pretty unspectacular leg, besides the obvious fact that she has good skin.