Paul Brown was in the middle of selling his house in the UK, the one he had bought from my dad in 1983, when we had moved to Affetside. He came over to sign documents and tidy up his life in the UK, before becoming officially homeless for several months while Reebok USA applied for his working visa in the USA. Steve Liggett came with him to interview for the job of Production Manager in Korea; this is when I met Andy Rate for the second time. Andy had been working for an east European company and had looked at making lower priced shoes for us, he knew Paul from their time at BATA together. Reebok was growing fast in the USA and we needed full time management to watch over the constant production lines, that were now in full swing, making Freestyles and the running styles. Andy was the perfect candidate and would start in the autumn.
Steve and Paul were also struggling with the development workload and I had just dumped 45 colour options on them for our new Italian distributor. The first attempt from Korea had resulted in each component, leather, terry lining, rubber sole, all having a slightly different colour from the next component. Steve and Paul decided I could match all the colours in the factory. Steve headed back to Korea and Paul and I headed out to Boston, back on that flight via London to Boston, and the new offices at Avon. It seems to me that USA moved offices almost every year between 1984 and ’88. Bringing everyone together then splitting them up again when they ran out of space, something that continued even after they moved to Technology Drive. Here I first met Tuan Le, then just 25, he was the first design recruit and was given the brief of Basketball, a new category we planned to enter at the next Super show.
While waiting for our arrival Tuan had been given the challenge of deigning tennis shirts for our new group of professionals, he came up with a stunning hazard tape shading on the shoulders, which was to become a Reebok standard in clothing.
After a couple of days picking up the US briefs, which included a new Instructor shoe for aerobics, a new fitness category for men, several running and tennis lines and the aforementioned basketball, we set off for Korea. We had been due to get the American Eagle to New York and then Korean Air to Seoul. We sat in Boston watching the rain for four hours, while flights got bumped until we eventually were on our way. On our arrival at JFK, our flight had gone, and hours were again spent rescheduling and moving us around until eventually we were off to Tokyo! I had flown the Atlantic, now I was going to learn the hard way what long distance flying was in earnest. After eight hours we touched down in Anchorage and were told to get off and stretch our legs.
For fans of Douglas Adams who will be aware of his book; ‘The restaurant at the end of the Galaxy’, I can only describe Anchorage as ‘The airport at the end of the Galaxy!’ A long glass corridor with gates at each side, the airport was miles from Anchorage and sat in the middle of raised taxiways, which had deep pits surrounding them. I decided to explore and headed off to the far end past display cases of stuffed Moose, stuffed Bears, stuffed wolves in fact every type of fauna in Alaska including a family of Inuit on a sledge pulled by stuffed dogs. Bizarre!
Back on the plane for a further eight hours, we arrived in Narita and travelled into Tokyo by bus having bargained at the airport for a hotel room, with a shuttle service. To add insult to injury our luggage had not connected with our flight in New York, so our clothes would not follow us for another twenty four hours and would go direct to Seoul. A night of handwashing underwear in the sink and drying them over the aircon was tempered by a nice comfy bed for the night.
The morning was an early start involving a taxi ride to a rainy Haneda airport, a short flight to Fukuoka and another to Seoul. Immigration was followed by customs, who seem rather vexed that we had no luggage then out of the international terminal and a walk down the ramp to domestic, check in again to be greeted with the efficient Korean airlines.
With less than twenty minutes before take-off the gate was opened and we were swamped by people running for the plane steps, pushed up the steps and down the aisle where we climbed into our spot before we were swept past. I was amazed at the volume of stuff the people dragged onboard; all the bags seemed way too big for the overhead lockers. Suddenly the pilot announced it was time to go and the stewardesses began to thrust people into seats as the plane began to edge out to the runway, the last passenger was seated as we began take off!
Pusan or Busan, is situated on the south east tip of South Korea. Surrounded by a ring of mountains, with many outlying islands and peninsulas enclosing a large, deep, natural harbour. We circled around and around before approaching from the sea for our landing.
We were met by B.C. ‘Benny’ Yoon, in those days he was the sales manager of PYC the factory making Reebok shoes and part of H.S. Corporation, who had several factories in Busan making shoes for Nike and Adidas as well as Reebok.
B.C. deposited us at the door of the Westin Chosun Beach Hotel, across other side of Busan. The only truly western style hotel, the Chosun Beach was a 10 story concrete building with full length glass windows that from the western dining room overlooked Haeundae Bay and it’s beach. Sat on an isthmus that connected a pagoda topped islet covered in pine trees, to the city. It was a little paradise in what was the industrial sprawl of ‘80’s Busan. This was to be our home for the next two weeks.
© David Foster 2020
Foster's Famous Shoe's 
Wow , a bit hectic , you’ll never forget that journey !!!!!
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