Three weeks in Japan
the sky opens to befall
the summer that is
There certainly were some moments of adventure today, on the day that marked three weeks for me here in Japan. Firstly, it poured rain on the way to work. Actually, poured might not even be a strong enough word choice. My shirt was soaked, through my rain jacket, by the time I got on the train. Even on the train it was noticeable how heavy the rain was, as you couldn't see out the windows they were getting his so hard with water, and the doors looked like they were struggling to keep out all the surging water shooting at them. I won't complain though, because I am used to Vancouver, and it was a nice break from the usual humid heat in the morning. I must say though, that even in Vancouver it wouldn't rain that hard more than a few times a year.
Even more adventurous than trekking through sopping wet Tokyo was my evening plan. I met Masa to go for some sushi, and then to go get my hair cut. Masa kindly did all the talking at both the sushi restaurant and the hair salon. This meant I got some great sushi, and a very interesting haircut.
In the hair salon, they sat us down and gave me some magazines full of haircuts to look through. There were some hilarious coifs and some even more hilarious names given to them. My favourite was probably the "Fats Berry Fuber", named after a salon here based on some casual research. I'd love to one day walk into a barbershop in Canada and demand they give me a "Fats Berry Fuber". Even more hilarious was the kind of advertising in the magazine. There was an ad that Masa explained was for hormone treatments where people grew taller, as well as an ad to increase penis size where a chubby fella seemed to land his dream girl on account of his newfound length and girth. I picked a picture to show the stylist, and Masa explained what I wanted. Then Masa took off for home, and I sat in the salon for a long time. Four different people attended to me at different times, and the guy who actually cut my hair did so in two separate stages. In between I was given a wash, scalp massage, and strange shoulder massage by a different guy, who kept telling me in broken English that I was "STRONG!" Then he got me a cup of tea and I was relieved the other guy came back to finish the haircut. It looked a bit odd I must say when he finished, but it got a lot worse when he styled it with some wax. He pulled some bits down and stuck other bits up and I looked pretty hilarious. It's definitely quite a Japanese look, but the cut will be much better when I style it myself.
On the way home I ran into a fellow teacher, Lauren, getting off the train at our station, and her bouts of laughter confirmed that my hair did indeed look ridiculous.
Today's poem makes reference to a season and the impact of nature, in this case weather. I thought it was right to formulate a more traditional, punctation-less haiku on an important and interesting day like today.
No comments:
Post a Comment