Shoe Story

From The New York Times:

SEOUL, South Korea — In South Korea, where people often remove their shoes before entering homes, restaurants or funeral parlors, it is a nagging problem: people walking off with others’ shoes, either by mistake or, sometimes, intentionally.

Still, Detective Kim Jeong-gu’s jaw dropped recently when he opened the warehouse of an ex-convict in Seoul and found 170 apple boxes packed with 1,700 pairs of expensive designer shoes, sorted by size and brand, and all believed to have been stolen.

“Shoe theft is not unusual here,” Detective Kim, 28, said. “But we gasped at this one.”

Many of my colleagues have stories of lost shoes. After soccer games, I keep my nice pair of Adidas in my bag.