A month in Japan

• Haircut
o When I first starting buying expensive things I never imagined I would sink to buying pants that had previously cost $150… I never thought I would buy belts worth $100… and I sure as hell never thought I’d get my hair done for a price around $100… and yet all of that has happened now… granted only the hair happened in japan though. The story of my haircut today is rather amazing. It shows how everyone in japan is kind… how much money I’ll spend on something as trivial as hair… and just how wonderful japan is.
o I arrived at Hair Boutique 24 at around 11:30 in the morning… I don’t think I left till after 2:30 in the afternoon… it was a long morning of hair. I walked into the salon with a picture of the cut that I wanted done… and asked “ikura desuka… how much is this?” the response was “30,000 yen… $300 “… I kinda laughed and asked how much the cut and coloring was… and his response was a nice reasonable 6000 yen or about $60. Ofcourse, I knew this wouldn’t look as good, so I was a bit disappointed, but I thought… ok, this’ll do. The hair salon was very nice and I started to get my hair cut… about 45 minutes into the cut… the guy cutting my hairs turns to the guy next to him and says something about straightening. The other guy manages to convey to me that the cut really won’t work if my hair isn’t straight… I look at the picture of the cut I want… and have to agree.. Then, before my eyes, the other guy asks “how much can you pay”… I don’t want to be overly cheap since clearly they were giving me an insane deal so I said $100… or it’s yen equivalent. Then, surprisingly me completely, the man agrees. As it turns out, the guy who knew a bit of English was the father of the guy cutting my hair. The father, his wife, and their son own the shop and they all cut hair. I was completely thrown though that he would give me such a great cut for 1/3 of the price. Now… here comes the most amazing part… as I’m getting my hair straightened… the son comes out with a typed of piece of paper… he wasn’t confident with his spoken English, but he was confident he could type what he wanted to say. He wrote basically “I’m worried about this price… are you sure it’s ok with you to spend this much for the cut, the coloring, and the straightening… I want to make sure you will still have enough money left over to have fun in japan.” I hurriedly said the equivalent of don’t worry about… and thanks so much to him, but this really touched me. Most hairdressers don’t care what’ll happen to the customer after they leave their shop… the important part is to do the cut as quickly as possible and to get the money. This just amazed me… of all the kind people in Japan, the man who cut my hair clearly takes the gold metal. The haircut took a long time… straightening a few times, coloring, and cutting… so there was a small tv and a huge list of movies… I watched the bourne identity and managed to get through the entire movie… and then start on the transporter. About 2/3 of the way through the cut… I was asked if I wanted anything to drink… coffee… etc… milk tea he asked? I said sure that would be fine, and they brought me a glass of tea, milk in a little cup, and some suger w/ it. I really don’t get their kindness… it amazes me. I took many lots of pictures with everyone at the hair place and they were so kind about it. I’m too amazed… I really am
• The rest of the day
o By the time my haircut was finished, a large portion of the day had dwindled passsed… as I wanted to return to the hotel after and drop off my ipod… get a drink… and check a few emails. I decided to head to Kyoto at around 5 to check out what they had to offer in the dinner department and then see what the shopping was like. I found a small place with had some great edamame… I had this along with miso soup and some skewered chicken… simple, cheap, tasty…. Excellent. I wandered around Kyoto afterwards and came across a beautiful temple (Kyoto has a few of them), so I took a few pictures. I browsed the shops at the train station, but after my hair cut decided to wait till Tokyo to make any further purchases… I feel as though I’ve been on trains for too much of today, so I plan to walk a lot tomorrow. I’m back at the hotel now looking over my pictures… time to take a bit of a rest.