Shoe Dilemma!

Every girl will, at some point in her life, have issues with shoes, and I'm no exception. Here's the deal: I usually like to look nice when going to work, including wearing nice shoes. This has all changed since moving to Shanghai. As soon as sandle-season was over in early November, I busted out my cute little black ballet-flats, but realized within about 2 days that these were never gonna cut it here. You see, these shoes are quite open on top and there's NO central heating in the school, plus walking to work thru all kinds of weather (while dodging hork, dog crap, massive puddles, and crazy motorbikes on the sidewalk), my feet both freeze and just aren't protected.

Seeing as this was the only pair of nice shoes I'd brought along (due to trying to pack light when we moved here), the next pair of shoes in line for "work duty" were my black Gallaz skate shoes, which match and blend in with everything. I know they're a little less dressy, but o well, they did the job. The only problem was that I've worn these shoes for the past 4 years STRAIGHT and I've pretty much worn them into the ground. I thought they'd last until the summer when I could replace them at home, but last week the heels cracked- you know that part of the heel of the shoe where there's hard plastic under the inner lining? Well, the plastic on both shoes started cracking, cut thru the lining, and was cutting my heels... they were literally drawing blood! So it was high time for new shoes.

I looked everywhere in Shanghai last weekend for a new pair of black skate shoes (since we walk everywhere in this city, it's important to have comfy shoes), but they only had mens. Then I looked online and found a sweet pair, but they only ship to the States. I felt like all my options just weren't working out. When I thought about it though, there's only really about one more month till sandal-season again here, so I decided to go with my gut and just get the shoes I'd had my eye on for the past few months: bubble-gum pink high-top Converse All-Stars. Why not? These would be the perfect funky solution.

So I bought them and left the rotting, cracking, blood-drawing Gallaz in the shoe store, wearing my new pink Converse shoes out on the street. This was perfect for about half an hour, until I realized how narrow they are in the front... both my baby toes started to get mad blisters on the side. Arrrghhh! This only left me with one option: wearing my bright yellow running shoes to work. Terrible, I know, but I'm not about to go buy some geeky-looking Chinese shoes here just to wear to work. I really don't need Mickey Mouse on my shoes, now do I?

So... this summer back in Vancouver it'll be shoe-shopping all the way until I find something cool and comfy again.