pity my poor feet

During my almost 2 years of break from the corporate world, I was very happy to swap my heels for flats and sneakers. The rough skin developed from walking in too much heels and poorly designed shoes gave me constant calluses and corns.

I was really happy that I had almost perfect skin for my feet during my stay in Niigata. The only times I had to wear heels were for presentations and interviews. Even those times, you would be thinking this grrl has never worn heels in her life before, just by looking at the way she walks!

I still remember a class trip down to Tokyo one spring day, the sky was a bright blue and the temperature just right and crisp. Very nice for walking. But even then, my expensive (to me, it was!) Hush Puppies mary-janes almost killed me as I tried to walk from the station to the Sony office. So bad that I had to take off my shoes and walk bare-footed. Since it was still a bit chilly, I had my socks on. They were black, so it didn't look that obvious, plus I tried to tip-toe when walking to give the illusion I was still in my shoes.


Even when I was working during fall and winter, my feet were still fine. In fact, I made sure I pampered them with Body Shop's Body Butter and wore socks everywhere. I absolutely adore the Mango and Shea Butter flavoured scented ones. They were a life-saver for my feet during those cold dry months.

However, now that summer is here, I have no choice but to go out in sandals and heels and expose my poor feet to the harsh elements. With all the walking I have to do, my feet are slowly becoming rough again. I'm slowly beginning to get used to wearing heels (a sign of this is being able to run in them!) but for covered shoes, I have to resort to using these.


Scholl has quite a wide range of gel pads for the feet. Each in various shapes and usages. It even has a glam collection for party shoes, and are made of glittered gel pads. They're pretty comfortable, but still abit too expensive for me. This were the first ones that I bought which, unfortunately, still didn't help me with my killer Hush Puppies. I could only walk for 10 minutes and had to put on a brave front trying not to think about the pain.


Then I found these selling in the 100yen shop near my house! They also come in various shapes, though the texture is not as good as Scholl's. For the price and made in Japan, I thought this was pretty good value-for-money. So I bought 2 types.


The ones for the soles worked somewhat like Handiplast. Peel off the necessary rectangles from the plastic backing and stick it under your feet. It does help especially with high heels but because of constant friction, sometimes it gets pushed down like a folded piece of used Handiplast. Since it feels like Handiplast and looks like Handiplast, maybe I should use a regular Handiplast instead!


The other one which worked a lot better for me was this ring-shaped cushion. I couldn't find one under Scholl so I got this one from the 100yen shop as well. For someone with an erm, unusual feet shape, I've never enjoyed wearing closed shoes. Like mary-janes and ballerina pumps. I wish I could walk around in those, so many in fashion now, but alas, I have to allow practicality to have priority over beauty.

I really wonder how the Japanese grrls do it. Heels and stilettos everywhere they walk. I used to be able to do that in KL. I could even run in my 3-inch heels. But I had a car then, so there wasn't much walking as I have to do now. And even if I did, I still had a pair of sandals or plain slippers in the car for when I'm driving.

Hmm, now where can I go for an affordable pedicure and feet massage here? Or I could do a D-I-Y with Body Shop's Peppermint Foot Care products...