Haircut

Day 9

It seems to be a fairly typical thing to grow your hair out so you can wear an updo for your wedding. Of course, this means you end up with hair longer than you normally like. After being in Japan for a week, I am ready to concede that it is more humid here than in North Carolina. My hair was not happy being long and big and pouffy, so I asked my friends for a salon recommendation. The key here is to get someone who can cut gaijin hair, which is different than Japanese hair. Also, it helps if they speak English. Lucky for me there is a fantastic salon that excels in both, A Cut Above. The service was much more relaxed than a typical American salon. The shampoo chair was automatic, meaning, they pushed a button and it slid back, similar to a dentist chair. This was really nice. They give you a head massage as part of the shampoo. So if you are in Japan, and are looking for a relaxing place to get your hair cut, call this salon.



Another adventure in shopping. My friend was going to Costco to stock up, and invited me along. Costco is about half an hour away, in another part of Tokyo, so it was nice to get a ride in a car. Some things are exactly the same. For example, Costco in Japan has the same huge 7 day cooler that my mom takes to girls camp. I have no idea how this cooler would fit in a Japanese trunk. It takes up the entire back seat of my Corolla, and cars here are half the size of my Corolla.

Also the same is the food court. I sort of expected at least one Japanese thing on the menu.... some rice or a beef bowl or something. But there isn't anything Japanese on the menu. You can buy a slice of pizza and a fountain soda for $2, or a hot dog and a fountain soda, exactly the same as in the U.S.
Some things are different. For example, the deli case has octopus legs... or are they arms? Maybe it is squid... I have no idea.

A cool feature of the store is the escalator. You drive in above the store, and then you ride down a ramp escalator which your cart hooks into so it doesn't slide. Pretty awesome.


But I am still baffled by the fact that the store was really busy. I have gone shopping in similar stores with my mom, when she was feeding six kids, and had an outdoor freezer. Her cart would be really full leaving the store. I saw many carts wheeled out of the Costco today that were just as full. It makes me wonder where they put all that food. I think our fridge/freezer is probably an average size, and there is no way we could fit that much stuff inside of it.

It rained today. On rainy days everyone carries an umbrella, usually of this style:

I noticed that several women wear rain boots that have heels on them. I think this is comical because I would imagine you are more prone to slip if you are wearing heels on wet pavement.

For dinner we met a friend at a restaurant called Osho. They have something called a gyoza, which is a chinese fried meat pocket. They are really tasty.