freelacer

No, this post's title isn't a typo: it's free-lace-er. I was out walking around town with my buddy Tom the other night (it was Christmas, in fact); we veered toward Namdaemun Market because Tom needed to buy a new pair of shoes. He said he wanted to buy me a new pair of walking/running shoes as well, given the ratty state of my New Balances (which have probably seen around two thousand miles of foot travel since 2008), but I groused that I wasn't a charity case and I could just get my shoes repaired at any local gudu-suseon-jip—one of those tiny shoe-repair places that you can find at random intervals on Seoul's city sidewalks.

So I accompanied Tom to his favorite shoe seller as a gesture of moral support. Inside the shop, the men running it complimented my Korean, and when I asked how much it might cost to get some laces for my beaten-up shoes, one of the men said he'd simply give me a set.

Hence free laces for yours truly, the freelacer.


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