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<\/a><\/p>\nMs. Semba magnanimously agreed to let me print a full page of color from the office inkjet, and once I got over the name, I decided to visit the hair salon closest to my apartment. Yes, that would be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hair Studio Rookie.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I have never paid more for a haircut than I did for this one- but let me tell you, for the services I got, and not knowing how these things work in Japan, I was literally prepared to pay twice what I did. It was relatively painless showing the guy the picture and getting started. He knew enough English to get through without too much fuss, and actually complimented me on my hair color at one point (hence the lead-in). Rather than writing a paragraph about it, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just give you a bulleted list of the services I received:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Shampoo & Condition<\/li>\n
- Scalp massage<\/li>\n
- Facial Mask (with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bitamin Shee\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/li>\n
- Light facial massage<\/li>\n
- Old school shave (involving a hot towel, a boar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hair brush, & a straight razor)<\/li>\n
- Forehead shave (??) (with slight eyebrow edging)<\/li>\n
- Haircut (obviously)<\/li>\n
- Neck shave (also with the straight razor)<\/li>\n
- Neck, shoulder, and upper back massage with an electric massager<\/li>\n
- Hair rinse (presumably to get rid of the clippings)<\/li>\n
- Style and gel<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This was my first shave with a straight razor, and with my head flopped back on the chair, I was seriously hoping the man with the very very sharp knife at my throat was not a fan of Sweeney Todd (or epileptic for that matter). I also found out later that a forehead shave with a straight razor is normal with your haircut in Japan. Does that seem weird to anyone else?<\/p>\n
Every time he asked me if I wanted something (I invariably said yes), I wondered how much more I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to pay for it. I had almost \u00c2\u00a510,000 (about $100) in my pocket, and was wondering where the closest ATM was in case I needed more. As you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d expect, he was very friendly and personable. Oh, and straight- his wife and their infant were also in the salon. I told him I was a teacher at a nearby English school as his wife was ringing me up, and he apologized for his English. I told him he was far better in English than most of the rest of the city, and he seemed happy.<\/p>\n
Keeping in mind that you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tip in Japan and that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to hit the ATM, how much do you think I paid for the best haircut experience of my life?<\/p>\n
Give up?<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a53300 ($33)<\/p>\n
Yes, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $33. And I got a punch card that earns me a free piece of low-end jewelry of my choice after ten haircuts. Not that I need a gold-plated rope necklace, but still. Can you believe it??<\/p>\n
I know where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be going for my haircuts while I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in Matsuyama. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just had a man run his hands through my hair and tell me my hair color was beautiful. One of the things I worried about when I came to Japan was getting a haircut, because I knew I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know enough Japanese by the time I needed one to describe how I wanted it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[31,30,32],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matsuyama","category-settling-in","tag-hair","tag-haircut","tag-rookie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidhed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}