Hair cut

Well kids, it finally had to happen: I went and got my ears lowered today. And, as always, it was a dramatic change. For those of you who have not had the opportunity, nay honor (cough cough), of meeting me on the outernet, I get my hair cut about three or four times a year; I swing from really short hair to really long emo hair (see my profile pic). It saves a lot of money, and I get to be two different kinds of sexy.

The challenge/fear this time was I had never had my hair cut in Japan. And my continued lack of knowledge of the Japanese language made this more of a potentially hazardous adventure.

I started out by going to barber not far from my apartment: I walked in and coughed to get the shop owner's attention, he spun around, shocked (probably at my lack of Asian-ness) and yelled that they were closed. At three o'clock in the afternoon. I decided that I need to learn how to say "What are you? A HAIR nazi?" in Japanese, and then went home and called my friend Francis to see if he wanted to go see if we could find another, less enthno-centric, barber. He'd found one at a shopping center a few days ago, so we headed out in the mid-90 degree afternoon heat and walked to the center about 25 minutes away.

Now, due to a lack of space in their country, the Japanese have found a way to streamline just about everything; there really isn't a whole lot of wasted room. The barbershop/salon/folicular specialist we went to was about twenty feet wide and fifty feet long, had four "stations" with computerized vacuums, a tray for styling accoutrements with a UV sterilizer, and TV monitors with constantly updated news. Not only that, our shop has this particular sales tactic: you walk in, pay ¥1000 ($10), and get a ticket for one, ten-minute haircut. Yes, a ten-minute haircut. You pay $1 per minute. This is possibly the coolest/craziest thing I've ever heard of. So somehow, despite the fact I don't speak much Japanese, despite the fact I haven't been shorn in three and a half months, despite the fact they have ten minutes to make me look years younger, somehow I get a really decent-looking haircut! I have a newfound respect for Japanese hairstylists!

Except racist ones, they can go get earthquaked.

Hopefully I'll have a new pic up in a couple of days...