between last week and this, i had a baby shower, a vet visit, and a hair cut. and while that may sound rather mundane, ordinary life here is quite outrageous and surprising at times. i never know quite what i'm getting myself into.
first, the baby shower. i offered to help a friend get things ready for her sister's baby shower (the babe is due in november). i cut things out, and did a lot of gluing, and it was a lot of fun for a thursday night, and they fed me chips and salsa, so i was quite happy. the actual baby shower was sunday afternoon at a coffee shop near ssangyong: the coffee mission. we blew up balloons, and played games, and cut strings to guess belly sizes (i accidentally got two of them right). it was a good group of people celebrating a good thing. it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
back up a little bit to saturday. my only tasks for the day were taking the cat to the vet for a shot and skyping a friend that evening. co-teacher had called before, so they knew i was coming. i show up with an unhappy cat and julie to translate. the vet was in surgery. for two hours. julie had things to do, so i left the cat and sat in a coffee shop for hours. i was upset and a little bitter, but sitting there was quite refreshing and renewing. i was in my big lake michigan sweatshirt in a comfortable chair drinking an extra large latte. and when you think about it, that's not a bad situation to be in. so i dealt with it. i kakao'd people and pinterested and all-in-all, it wasn't terrible. but what should have been an hour long endeavor ended up taking more than four hours. it was frustrating.
eventually, we got back home. there was some whining in the taxi. but we spent the afternoon relaxing, cleaning, laundering, doing things i had neglected to do all week. looking forward to skyping. but there was miscommunication as there almost always is, and i thought it was my saturday night his saturday morning, and he thought it was his saturday night, my sunday morning. and we didn't end up skyping. that was frustrating, too. saturday was frustrating. sunday was sweet.
along comes monday. i needed something for myself. a change, something different. i had actively avoided korean hair salons during the twelve months in korea. i'd heard horror stories about how they couldn't handle foreign hair, and my curly, blonde, fine hair is surely foreign. but after almost nine months without a haircut (and a bathtub trim somewhere in the middle), it was time. for a brightening and a lightening and a trim. i found as many pictures as i could on pinterest to show what i wanted, how i wanted it (there were actually ten that i cycled through). in the end, it was beneficial, i swear.
korean hair salons are another world. actually alien, this is what i walked into.
they took our bags, offered us free beverages. sat us down in the waiting area, taking our names and a brief description of what i wanted (the pictures would come later).
j made me take a before selfie, to show my dreads, tangles, and uneven sides, i'm sure.
it was a short wait (they don't take appointments) and i was guided to my stylist around another side of chairs. i showed her my pictures, every single one of them. and through hand motions, broken english, and j acting as translator, we picked bits and pieces from all of them. the color of this, the length of that, the layers like those. i decided to go all out and get the ends of my hair lightened and try something to lighten my head of hair. (i was apprehensive about the blonde color because koreans don't have any natural blondes or even remotely close). she combed and cut my hair dry. brushing through the tangles and making me look like someone from a scary movie with my hair everywhere. then she started putting the dye on the ends and sponging it upwards so it would look more "natural" (because in korea, they tend to have straight lines of dye and i really didn't want that). two things i understood throughout our grunting discourse: my hair is naturally wavy and my hair wasn't the same length on both sides (oops). then she foiled me and took me to another chair where a hot machine flew around my head for fifteen minutes (you can see the metal contraption behind my head, it was moving 360 degrees).
after the time was done. i was taken by another woman to another area, where she covered my eyes with a tissue and proceeded to wash my hair and give me a head massage. she then returned me to my original chair where another woman gave me a back massage in passing. my stylist returned and started fluffing and drying my hair when another woman came and asked if i wanted a hand massage. i nodded my consent. she curled my hair and petted my head (at least that's what it felt like).
now some selfies.
the whole experience was other-worldly and i left on a cloud having only paid 55,000 won. everyone should go to korean hair salons at least once in their life, and i should definitely go back before another nine months pass.
in retrospect, the baby shower was delightful, waiting for the vet was bearable and turns out i even needed to sit and people watch and drink coffee and curl up in a big comfy chair, and the hair lady was brave to tackle my mess of hair (with a smile, even) (i can't imagine what she was thinking when she saw my head of tangles).
this "ordinary" life of mine is absolutely crazy sometimes (most of the time).
day-to-day, i never know what to expect.
but i'm thankful all the time, every day.
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the big, comfy, fluffy chair at the coffee shop was worth everything, the emotions, the waiting. because i haven't had a chair like that in far too long. and everyone needs a chair like that once in a while. to make you feel small, and forget things that don't really matter, and put things in perspective. because even chairs can do that.
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