Shoes, shoes, and more shoes!

This photo shows the scene, usually around lunch time or whenever guests might be expected, at the entrance to the school where I work. You probably can't tell, but all those little brown slippers are the same size: [very] small (at least for me). And, from what I can gather, there are no "left" or "right" slippers. They are simply all for either foot. If you visit my school and have no slippers of your own, you are going to be the lucky one who gets to wear these rather attractive slippers. Luckily, we faculty members each have a little cubbyhole next to the entrance where we can store 1 or 2 pairs of indoor slippers, because personally, I am not a fan of these brown slippers. I do have the luxury of wearing them once a day, however, when I go to lunch. See, in Japan you constantly change from indoor shoes to outdoor shoes and eventually back to your outdoor shoes. (Then again, if you don't have indoor shoes, you sometimes go barefoot or walk around inside wearing your socks.) Yeah, so basically, shoes play a HUGE role in life in Japan. At least from me. One part of that means that I have started wearing them with the laces rather loose, sort of skater-style. Not so much because of having to take them off often but rather for ease of putting them on fast. Let me walk you through a typical work day, as regards shoes.

Just before leaving the apartment, I slip into my shoes (which, as I mentioned, are easy to slip into since I have loosened the laces considerably). When I get to work (school), I walk in the main entrance, stop at that carpet (which is also a step up) and step out of my shoes. (There is a proper way of completing that that little action [imagine that!], which basically means not using your feet to help get your shoes off, but so many people break that "rule" that I do, too.)

Then, I grab my outdoor shoes and walk them about 10 feet over to my little shoes cubbyhole, and without putting my outdoor shoes down, open the cubbyhole, take out my indoor shoes/slippers, put those on, and place my outdoor shoes in the cubbyhole.

As long as I stay inside the school, I wear my indoor slippers/shoes. In my case, those are Birkenstocks, but other teachers wear regular ol' flip-flops, all sorts of sandals, "normal" shoes, whatever.

Very often you have to walk outside to go from building to building, but usually that means walking all of 15 feet or so outside, and usually that means walking along wooden pallets. So there is no need to change shoes along the way.

But as I mentioned earlier, I walk over to the dorm's cafeteria to eat lunch every schoolday, and that means changing shoes several times. First, off with my indoor shoes and on with my outdoor shoes. Then, at the entrance to the dorm, off with the outdoor shoes on on with those silly little brown slippers. Reverse after lunch.

Before coming to Japan, I thought I would be deeply insulting the Japanese if I ever broke those "rules" about indoor and outdoor shoes. But believe it or not, the Japanese sometimes break the rules themselves! I recently watched as one teacher strolled into the school building after lunch without changing shoes! Wow! And another time, shortly after I first arrived at eh school, I was given a brief tour of the school grounds and at one point we went outside without changing shoes! Holy cow! How cool!

You sort of have to have shoes stashed everywhere to make it easier to avoid going to your cubbyhole if you need to go outside. For example, you can step outside directly from the teachers' room. The border before you need to switch to outdoor shoes seems to be the parking lot cement. The balcony is fair territory for your indoor shoes, even though you're outside when you're on the balcony.

Yeah, so I placed a pair of (giant) slippers that my predecessor left me right there by the sliding door closest to my desk and marked them with the Kanji for "yama" so everyone would know their mine. And, whenever I step outside via the sliding door for some air or whatever, I put them on like a respectful foreigner. Problem is, occasionally I get confused and think the "yama" slippers are indoor slippers, since they served my predecessor as just that. I distinctly remember one time when I came in through the sliding door and put them on and walked inside. Oops! See what I mean about having shoes stashed all over the place? You can't just have indoor or outdoor shoes stashed here and there; you have to have both at all locations. Ugh!

Oh, and guess what you do when you get to the gym? That's right, you take off your indoor shoes and put on your OTHER indoor shoes, your for-exclusive-use-in-the-gym-only indoor shoes! Since I didn't bring any of those for-exclusive-use-in-the-gym-only indoor shoes with me to Japan, I'm using for that purpose the shoes that I bought for coaching baseball, since I'm not coaching baseball. And, psst, don't tell anyone: I actually wore those shoes outdoors on several occasions in the U.S. and Japan before transforming them into my for-exclusive-use-in-the-gym-only indoor shoes...

Oh, and then there are the "toilet" shoes. Yes, that's right, "toilet" shoes. When you go into a restroom, you often find more of those undersized, plastic, cheesy looking slippers for exclusive use in the restroom. And, yes, one time I really did forget to take them off before leaving the bathroom. I caught myself after walking about 30 feet in them and then simply turned around as nonchalantly as possible and put them back... SHOES!