I decided to do something different with my hair.
Yep, that's pink, all right! It was supposed to be red, but I like the pink just fine. Good thing, with all the trouble I went to just to dye a little teeny bit of my hair. Sheesh.
It all started when I went to the beauty salon on base to make an appointment for the following weekend (last weekend). "Now, before I make this appointment," I said, "I want to make sure you can do what I want." So I described how I wanted a small streak in my bangs dyed red. Like red red. Not auburn or copper or sunset crimson or some bullcrap like that. Do you, the base beauty salon, have bright, fire-engine red dye? The answer was hai. So I made the appointment. I show up for said appointment last Sunday with a drawing in hand showing exactly what I wanted. As I got comfy in the salon chair, I asked one more time: "So, you guys have bright bright red, right? Just like in this drawing?" Hai. So I settle in. The cut went well, the color of the rest of my hair (hopefully back to my natural color to hide the pesky remnants of yucky highlights from two years ago) went well, the bleaching of a small streak of my bangs went well. The lady brought out the big book 'o hair color samples so I could show her which shade of bright, bright red I wanted. Awesome! I picked one out, and she went back to mix it.
And then she returned ... empty-handed. No red. Or blue, or purple, or anything achieving the look I wanted to achieve. They don't have that kind of thing, after all, I was informed. This, may I remind you, being AFTER a chunk of my hair front and center was now bleached. I thought about flipping out mightily. I really almost did. But I decided to remain calm. The lady could tell I was unhappy, though, so she said she'd find some red hair dye for me in some store and get it for me AND tell me how to use it (I would have done all this myself, see, except I ain't putting chemicals on my hair if I can't read the directions). That placated me some, so I left without maiming anyone.
However, I began to get a nagging feeling I was never going to get the call from this lady telling me she's gotten my dye (and so far I am correct), so I took matters into my own hands. I headed to the Manic Panic Web site, only to find they don't ship to military addresses (freedom haters!).Other online stores carried Manic Panic and would ship to military addresses, but didn't have the color I wanted. Sigh. So I thought I was really screwed, but then, in desperation, I googled "Manic Panic Japan" to see if perhaps some store here happened to sell it (and have an English Web site). And by gum, it turns out Manic Panic runs a salon in Tokyo. And in all of Tokyo, it turns out it was located a mere 10 minute walk from my workplace! So I cruised to the salon, accompanied by my Japanese friend Hana, and scored a pot of just the color I wanted for a mere three times the U.S. retail price. After all that, though, I was prepared to pay pretty much whatever and like it.
As if that wasn't a good enough day, I was accompanied to the Manic Panic salon by several work friends in search of lunch, so we opted for a Chinese restaurant right next door to the salon. It was your average Chinese restaurant: Various kinds of fried rice, oolong tea, a smattering of Chinese decorations on the walls ... and everywhere -- EVERYWHERE -- cement molds shaped like breasts, um, bungholes, and, uh, phalluses. Seems the place used to be some sort of sex club, or weird bar or strip club or something, but that closed and the new proprietors didn't see a need to change the decor. So you can enjoy a nice Chinese lunch while appreciating a six-foot penis that appears to burst through a brick wall, or life-size boobies on the wall right behind you, or giant butts where, um, X marks the spot.
No, I didn't have my camera with me. I know.
And now I and my bitchin' new hair must scurry away from the computer to join Geoffrey as he watches "Back to the Future" on TV dubbed in Japanese. I'm eager to see how "1.21 gigawatts??? Great Scott!" translates ...
