Shoe Shopping

I need new shoes. Now. See the picture? Yeah, now you see why, so yesterday my friend and I set out on the mission to go buy me a pair of shoes. I just looked back at the title and realized I could have called this one "Mission Impossible" for real. Everyone said that stores do not carry the larger sizes of shoes here. I understood what they were saying, but I thought I would go buy a pair of Chucks since they come in men's sizes, too.

Once we started shopping, I saw several shoes that I wanted instead of the Chucks, though. They were cute and a little more appropriate for summer. I asked the woman if they had a 25.5 or a 26. (I wear a 9 back home but can sometimes wear an 8.5  in some shoes.) She looked at the little label and said that it only went up to a 25. I asked if I could try on the slide anyway. She brought it and I tried it and it was alright, a little tight. Then, I started looking at the other shoes and noticed the little tags under the shoes denoting the sizes available. For all the shoes there were only five sizes available: 23, 23.5, 24, 24.5, 25. That's it. I was and still am so amazed that the size of Japanese women is so homogeneous as to vary by only a few centimeters. Monday I will return and purchase the Chuck's...probably.

On another shoe note, the first store we stopped by had some interesting shoes. I'm pretty sure these in particular were for men, not women.

Yes, that is a spider bejeweled on the toe strap.

On a writing note, as of today I am nine pages behind schedule. 1500 words per pages times nine is a whole lot of writing to do. I better quit blogging and start writing, ne? Oh, and yesterday I did get a chance to read the first few pages to a couple of friends and the response was good, which is nice at this stage. Thanks, friends!