Korea Life Blog - Hairdo


Before ending up at Ohoo (see yesterdays post below) Julie and I hung out in Seoul then went to the Ewha University area where we spent 3 long hours at a hair shop. I talked Julie into getting a "wave" done. She told me it would take that long, but I didn't believe. Man, was I wrong. It took forever! And I promised to stay there the whole time, which I did. Good thing they had the internet there and free canned drinks and coffee.




A shot of one of the side streets in the Ewha University area. If you actually walk down toward the campus on any given day and just stand around with your mouth gaping in awe, you'll understand the phrase Darwinism at it's best. A long time ago, my friend Mark and I went there and though we walked into man's heaven. It's an all female university, in case you couldn't figure it out or if you're a little slow.



Mmm...not a place you can go where you can't find some delicious dried squid. Now, sitting out there all day in the hot humid air right next to the main street bustling with traffic kicking up dirt, how hygienic can this food really be. Worse yet though is dokbokki with all the little insects nose diving into the sauce and disappearing. The best outside stands are the ones enclosed in a tent, if you ask me. However, before I sound like an sniveller, let it be known that on many occasions I've feasted on O-daeng at these places...but usually in the cold winter without the insects in the broth.



A lot of little shops for women (or some modern guys I guess) line the streets. If owned one of these shops, I'd turn it into a cool studio apartment with the front being a huge two-way mirror and rent it out to some old pervert for a few million a month.



Personally I don't like body piercings (or make-up, or jewelry). I guess I'm conservative and enjoy the natural beauty of a woman. I can deal with a belly-button ring but anything other than that just looks silly. Body piercing reminds me of freaky, over-action American chicks from back home. Fortunately, however, here the peircings are mostly normal: belly-button and the occasional tongue ring so far...no nose rings or my least favorite, eye brow piercings, though they may exisit; I just haven't seen any. I'm guessing the other two piercings I'm thinking of are still taboo here too.



Great, a body piercing event. Luckily they put lots of example pictures out to scare people away from trying. See the next two pics for more...











Hmm...if you're hungry, why not stop for a healthy snack: sausage wrapped in bacon! YUM!



OK, here we are finally at the hair shop, where we'll be spending the next three hours. I'm sounding old and conservative again I guess, but I don't understand why some Korean women dye there hair blond. It just doesn't look right and their natural black hair looks so much nicer.



Looking around, I'm glad I'm not a girl and have pay to endure this kind of madness.




There's Julie taking a last look at her straight hair.




At this point she's really apprehensive and getting a bit irritable. Click on the picture (or better yet right click and choose "save target as")to view the short video clip. Wait until you see the next picture.



I practically burst into laughter when I saw this. Julie practically burst into tears. What the hell is this torture contraption they have her hooked up too? She asked me not to take her picture...actually she pleaded, but come on! How can I keep such a classic scene from my faithful readers? Besides, it's not as if she can stop me. Muhahah! Snap, snap!



Ahh, the joys of fashion. Poor Julie had to sit like this for over an hour. I took so many pictures that the damn batteries died before I could shoot a video or photograph the results. Once again I left the good set in the charger back home. Argh! Alas, though, her hair came out just gorgeous...lucky for me. We both love it. This is both good and bad though, as now she fears she will have to go through this every three months or more which means I'll probably have to as well.



I got the camera to turn back on again and was going to take a picture of Julie, but instead took one last picture off of this Dominoes pizza we ordered to celebrate the new hair. We chomped this down before meeting Swiss James for a night out at the Ohoo club. Maybe I can get him to send me some more pics of us and I'll post them soon.