Tandem Bikes and Couple Wear

Romance certainly isn’t dead in Korea – girls expect to be treated like princesses and have their bags carried for them or be whizzed around on the back of a tandem bike. Yes, that’s right. We’ve seen more tandem bikes in the last few months than in our whole lives. If you try a rental shop here, you’ll probably be asked where your other half is and if you want a nice pink tandem and matching helmets.

This really isn’t the tip of the iceberg, though. The best Korean fashion statement is ‘couple wear’ – which is exactly what it sounds like. Whole shops sell matching outfits for love birds, with the usual sight being a girlfriend and boyfriend in the same T-shirt. I have seen really outrageous head to toe copy cats, though, which includes matching shoes, bags and even hair cuts or colors…

Here it’s a perfectly normal statement of togetherness but something in my Western soul thinks its plain wrong, as well as looking rather ridiculous. It’s kind of the equivalent of marking your territory….