Dear readers, I have officially come to the end of my shoe pictures from Japan.  And it’s only appropriate that that end be the most common trends of Shoes on the Street.  I have to say that while I envy the Japanese women (and men) some individual shoe styles, I don’t envy them their constant wearing of pointy-toed high heels.

Case in point, these two pairs.  Please note that both were observed on women who were clearly walking around Kyoto sightseeing.  Yes, that’s gravel in one and uneven stone steps in both.

Ouch!  My feet hurt just thinking about walking around in those shoes all day.

Same thing goes for these sandals, which I’d expect to see on someone’s feet for a night out on the town (a mainly seated night out on the town, if they were on my feet), but were also being worn around a park full of temples and shrines.

Apart from the heels thing, the other major trend (which I’ve already mentioned) on the feet and legs of Japanese women everywhere is decorative socks and stockings.  I bought myself a bunch of them, because they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and styles.  Here are a few in their natural habitats.

I was head over heels for this pair (and the shoes are nice, too), which reminded me in a major way of those John Galliano lacey socklets that I loved last year.

This pair is pretty basic black, but check out the embellishments on the shoes themselves.  A frilly sock on top of that would just be overkill.

And this last photo was a woman who was wearing black knee socks with a double frill of lace around the top edge (think garters), but what I loved about the shoes is that they’ve got a little click-clacking charm hanging down from the underside of the sole right at the heel.  If you look at the larger version, you can see it more clearly.

And there it is, Shoeblog readers out there.  Shoe photos of Japan brought to you by Jitterbugbaby.  I now return to my regularly scheduled Stateside shoe-scoping, and will keep my eyes open for fun international shoes only via the miracles of teh intarwebs.