Emart is awesome.

Nowhere else can you get everything that you need in Korea, American style. Drapes, nails, reed mats, sashimi, televisions, vacuum cleaners.

It's not necessarily a place where you get the best Street Feet, but occasionally you get thrown a bone. This particular Sunday, I was out looking for some tools and do-hickeys that I didn't really need, when I spotted one of those gals who obviously puts some effort into keeping her feet neat. She had one something silver and strappy, and was all freshly painted up. She's not the kind that really has the whole package, as she not really all that leggy, but the faux-chain and studs as decorations just might be a hint at something nicely naughty that I guess only her boyfriend would know about. Her vibe was pretty hot from where I was standing; since she was also standing near her boyfriend, I was just happy to do my appreciating from a distance.

I did feel kinda weird to be shadowing them a bit, but I can say that I got pretty well acquainted with the pots and kitchen utensils aisle, which I was making an effort to look pretty interested in. I got a couple of her walking around, which I cropped for you below. The first one shows off just how impressive a spread she has, even if her shoes make her a bit of "sidewalk sweeper" with the toes hanging over.

And here, I was on my way out and I swear I was done with my little stalking session when the couple shows up in the next line. I decided to take one parting shot, which turned out well, with kind of a "sneaky" feel to it. Well, I guess it was kind of sneaky, after all.

Again, although she'll never hear it, I want to thank our mystery gal for putting on a much more widely-seen show than she ever thought when she was strapping on those showy shoes for a Sunday afternoon out. Her peds aren't perfect, but they sure were pretty enough. Cheers!

It's raining like hell here in Seoul, which means loads of not fun, wet pants, and an absolute son-of-a-bitch environment to take pictures in. But your fearless leg-bent leader kept the camera out, even as the umbrella barely kept water off of everything. Luckily, I spied many women with their sandals on – Korean women tend to wear sandals when it's wet, following the logic that it's like wearing slippers, anyway – which meant I had to keep my equipment out.

I saw a hapless young lady clicking her way between the puddles. I laid down a series of shots, which resulted in one stand-out shot that I really liked, despite it being out of focus. The girl's not a Glamour Gam kind of gal, but her Ghetto Fabulous skinniness and cheap shoes makes it so that when she's in the right pose, it looks oh, so – very Korean, 20-something, round-the-way girlish.

At the same time, it feels very urban, fresh, and "dynamic." Is this the true "dynamic Korea" everybody's talking about? Well, for a lot of young non-Koreans living here in Korea and Seoul – yes, in a very special way that's hard to explain.

Let me just add the "Watercolor" filter in Photoshop and let's see if the image gets a little fresher:

Click on either image for a perfect 1024X768 wallpaper background for your computer. Save the larger version and use that for your desktop, if you'd like.

And cheers to you on this rainy day in July, during what I consider to be Korea's worst time of the year. They say the monsoon season's coming to a stop this weekend; if they're wrong, grrrr. At least you'll have this wallpaper to remind you that good things can and do pop up,even on the rainiest and dreariest of days.

And – girl in the rain – whoever and wherever you are, thanks for giving me a bit of inspiration on an otherwise wet and gloomy, monsoon season day.

Sometimes you encounter a set of hind and heel that makes you really wonder why society won't let you just walk up to someone and say, as easily as one might ask, "That's a great purse! Can I ask where you got it?" something similar, to the effect of, "You have a beautiful pair of feet and a great manicure! Where do you go?"

You might reply that, hey – we're talking about body parts here; but if I say to a women whose hands are bling blinging all over the place, a woman who obviously puts extra effort into getting them done up just right, "I'm sorry to comment, but you've got a beautiful pair of hands," delivered in a casually confident, yet friendly way – I think it would probably go over alright. At the very least, she would likely smile politely and continue on about her business. But inside, I'm sure she's be flattered that someone noticed; I mean, if she's getting $30 manicures every week with the special neon nail polishes and black cats with the rhinestone studs on them – well, let's just say I'm pretty sure she'd take it in the way it was intended.

Of course, if you're a straight dude, all this complimenting for accessories this will seriously increase your GAYDAR signature to an uncomfortable point, but that's a hazard of the game. So is knowing too much about this spring's new dress sandal trends or the brand names of certain kinds of shoes on sight (which I actually don't – I don't watch that closely!); but I can tell you that blue neon nail polish is and has been in for the last 2 years at least, that the black socks thing is something I expect to see die a partial death this winter (of course, there will be some die-hards and then there's the fact that I guess the socks have the utility of keeping legs warm). But I'm not quite to that level yet; I'm just busy "coming out" that I even find women's feet and legs attractive. I know, I know – I also think that I'm no different from any other dude in this sort of appreciation, but still, what would Mom say?

Anyway, walking through a Starbucks the other day, I got a glimpse of a young lady who was sitting alone at one of the few tables across from the counter, sipping on her coffee, looking a bit vexed about something. She was talking pretty animatedly on the phone, and when I glanced down, as I tend to do, to check out whether she was as fashionable on the bottom as she was on top, I was intrigued enough to have to reach for the camera.  Her whole presentation down there was just right, with enough detailing on the toes to show that she put a lot of value in getting her stuff done just right. At the very least, she had the money, time, and the will to use it. I also liked her color scheme; it was like she was clean and tastefully dressed, with nothing special and not really trying too hard, but with just that splash of color and flair that makes a man look twice, or his eyes linger longer on her.

Green and gold girl was just pretty sharp; the thing I noticed about the pictures afterwards was that they came out almost as if she were posing for the camera on purpose, like she knew she was being photographed, as well as why. Notice the pose with her in the chair, off to the side, in which her feet, legs, and hand is posed just right – I couldn't have even asked for a better pose. As for the one with her legs facing the camera, note how the autofocus grabbed the back foot and not the front area. it creates a pretty cool effect that I didn't even plan in advance. The topping on the cake was the little "X" bandage on her foot, which actually kind of works to add a bit of the kind of affected cuteness that goes with a beautiful women putting in a false "beauty mark." That may be a stretch, but I like to think of it that way. In the end, I found her to be one of the sexiest inpromptu "models" I've shot so far. These two shots are two of my absolute favorites, and a sign I'm getting more confident about my camera skills and being innocuous about shooting.

Of course, I do dread the day I eventually get caught; there must be that day, right? I still working on my cover story, but the more I think about it, given my goals of doing this without disturbing anyone or exposing anyone's identities, is there really any harm? I guess I'll just have to smile and say, "I just thought her feet were pretty. Sorry!" Hope that works. If I ever have to explain myself – trust me – you all will be the first to know.

There's something about nerdy girls that always kinda did it for me. It's the "naughty librarian" fantasy – you know, the one where the shy, reserved girl lets down her hair and turns out to have a hot bod hidden beneath her frumpy clothes, and secretly knew how to get down "at band camp." Hehe.

So I was walking around when I spied two young ladies, one of whom was nothing to look at, but the other – wow. Total nerdy girl on top, with no makeup and a cute smile. Not quite the naughty librarian, but she was all of the Korean student in cute and casual mode, despite the fact that this involves heels with that high-cut pair of shorts. I actually spied them walking in the opposite direction from me, across the intersection from me. I wasn't ready with the equipment, anyway, and by the time I had thought about it, they had disappeared. Much to my surprise, I picked them up on radar again, walking not too fair ahead of me in the same direction. They took a detour into a small bakery, so I got up the courage to make up an excuse to go in there with them. I pulled off several shots with them choosing bread, and her flexing those leg muscles about as she chattered with her friend over which pieces to buy. On thing I like about Nerdy Girl is her strong and defined ankles, which pinch into a nice taper in the back.

She also does what I call the Korean girl "strap-o-sass" walk, which involves equal parts being too bothered to actually properly put on the strap at the back of your heel, not wanting the irritation it provides, being able to slip off the shoes and wiggle your feet at any opportunity, as well as to walk with the somewhat rude, somewhat sassy "slap-slap" of mules that aren't supposed to me mules against the soles of the feet.

You see the strap-o-sass a lot in younger girls and the lower class. It's considered a bit rude and you'd never go visit someone important with the "slap-slap" of the strap-o-sass while popping gum, which often go together. But I must admit that, done right, the strap-o-sass can be kinda hot.

Going along with her strap-o-sass is the kind of over-feminine strut that you get with women who really like to wear high heels. It's hard to explain, but it's kind of a step, sway, let-the-weight-settle, repeat cycle done at a slower gait; it also involves stepping down deliberately heel-first, like one is supposed to do when walking in high heels. It's not the cutesy gait that goes along with stepping toe-first and walking pigeon-toed that a lot of Japanese women do, along with the high heel uninitiated.

Nerdy Girl was all of these, walking with her strap mashed down and swinging her legs all the way out while strutting confidently with her friend. I got the best shot of her as they walked out of the bakery, a lucky, lucky shot out of the several I fired off with my camera's motor drive. In the shot that I love, it's almost as if she stuck out her leg to let me have a good look at it. Lucky, lucky.

Her leg is a typical Korean one, having not seen much real exercise but being quite skinny. There's a certain aesthetic to that kind of look, especially when there's a nice arch and a clean, even presentation of toes across the front. Nerdy Girl has the kind of casual sexiness that I like as much as the girls who put all kinds of time and money into their feet and bare much more leg than should be legal outside of Vegas or something.

I must admit that Nerdy Girl's toes are pretty attractive, ahem. I guess they can be thought of as the toes I would imagine the naughty librarian in my mind to have – clean and unadorned, but filling out a heel and an arch that could be quite sexy if she tried.

Grr. Nerdy Girl was a good find; what do you guys think? Naughty librarian? Too much?

People who sexually abuse minors are reprehensible people. But because of their misguided tastes, do the appreciators of the lower female form have to suffer?

PHILOLOGY

Now, let me just say that pedophilia is a really, really bad thing.

That being said, I'll also add that I think it a shame that such a potentially good word got taken by such a nasty concept.

If you think about it, "pedophilia" is an unusual word. Most "phile" and "phobe" words tend to fall along the lines of positive and negative, respectively. Positive – audiophile, bibliophile, technophile, Francophile. On the negative and the conceptual end of things, you have homophobia, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, negrophobia.

Were you learning English, you might be right to be surprised that the foot-related root "ped" – the one used in pedestrian, pedal, pedestal, and pedicure. "Ped" comes from Latin the pedalis, which passes down the meaning of "foot."

And yes, there's the "pedo" found in pediatrics, which comes from the Greek pais, paid, which means "child" or "boy."

But between the legacy of Latin (foot) and Greek (child) influence, there are simply many more words that have to do with "foot" using the "ped" prefix. And yes, even though "phile" (from philos) is of Greek origins, most of our associations with that word are neutral to positive, as I just mentioned.

There isn't much point to fighting convention here, but I'd just like to say that the negative connotations associated with having a so-called "foot fetish" are not much better (although it's not illegal!) than being a "pedophile," at least in terms of either of these concepts being considered "sexual deviant" behavior. Look in a psychology textbook. I did.

"FETISH"

So, I'll say that I'm neither a "sexual deviant" nor a person who likes to lick feet or choke the chicken all over women's shoes. I'm simply a person who acknowledges the perfectly, glaringly obvious – that the feet and legs of women are major fetish objects in Chinese, Japanese, and yes, Korean culture.

Isn't this obvious? For a lot of reasons? We don't even have to get into discussions of Chinese foot binding, the endless numbers of Japanese leg and stocking websites, or how old-school Korean men would supposedly go all crazy over the "upturned heel" peeking out from underneath Korean hanboks? And if you look at how Korean women pamper and pedicure their feet nowadays, the high-rise skirts, and the similarly feet/legocentric nature of naughty Korean sites, you must know that the combination of feet and legs are secondary in importance to only the face in Korean definitions of beauty.

Add to that the conventional wisdom that black guys "like big butts" or that "gentlemen prefer blondes" or certain dudes are "breast men" and suddenly liking how a shapely pair of legs tapers down to a cute pair of feet in heels doesn't seem so weird does it?

What straight dude doesn't want to see a pair of long legs perched atop a pair of sexy heels? Is that a weird "fetish," or actually pretty normal? And if we can acknowledge the fact that some girls have cute feet and some don't, then that's pretty much the ball game, right?

We just appreciate the whole lower package 'round here.

I'm the kinda guy who looks down and then looks up, unlike some men who do the opposite.

I'm the kinda guy who thinks that shoes say more about a person than any other single piece of clothing.

If you agree, then I guess I'll be seeing you around!

Starting off with a whimper, here goes the first post and the first decent picture I pulled off, armed with the slightly embarrassing mission of capturing the most unusual of images.

Click the pic to enlarge.

I took this picture of a girl who was pretty plain on top, but quite delicately put together on the bottom. Hers are of the long and slender type, and are presented quite well in these particular shoes. I caught her in a prime, pretty pose that really highlighted her casually trussed, but elegant arches.