I killed a day in Bangkok shopping for new shoes. I left the old ones in the shop after getting a replacement for $15. They'd been stitched back together several weeks before by a feuding odd-couple of shoeshiners in an Indian railway station. The first guy had communicated his desire to fix my bag's zipper for 50 rupees and, since I didn't have correct change, begged to stitch my shoes together to get a whole 100 rupees ($2.50) instead of my making change for half that. But the other shoeshine wouldn't allow him to have all the day's business, and they started yanking and pulling the shoe apart, each trying to claim the job for himself as I contemplated a shoeless immediate future. Somehow they resolved their dispute and I walked away fully shod - but stitched or not the shoes were still shot, and I didn't want to be in Japan looking like a bum. | Next (Continue to Korea-Japan Map | Asia 2005 Gallery Home | Home