I’ve been needing a haircut for awhile now. It’s been nearly seven months since my last cut. Being in Japan, where would I go? The shops that are more accommodating to foreigners tend to be way more expensive, from what I could tell online. Thankfully, one of the girls on the hall just had a haircut and I decided to ask her where she got it done. She was very helpful and even helped me set up an appointment online.
Fast forward to Saturday, day of the appointment. Having never been there and being the nervous goose that I am, I left early. I got to the place a half an hour early. Only for them to tell me that I did not have an appointment. I could feel myself panicking because I knew I had an appointment but I had no effective means of communicating this information. Good thing I had the confirmation email on my phone. Only to have the lady show me that the place I had booked the appointment with was near Kawasaki station, not near Motosumiyoshi Station. I had not even known the place was a chain salon. Well, what else could I do? I was not about to pay the ¥2000 cancellation fee. I booked it to Kawasaki.
In my desperate dash to the station and realizing that I forgot my Passmo (a rechargeable train pass), I learned to not waste time searching through convoluted subway maps, where I barely know the kanji for places. Google maps gave me the train lines and station platform numbers but not the ticket prices (which are based on distance in Japan). Just politely ask someone: (place name) ikura desu ka? They’ll tell you the price (this is where it would be helpful to review numbers before going to Japan), you can buy the ticket and be on your merry way. More like rushed in my case. I still got to the beauty salon 20 minutes late. They still made time to get my hair done. The worst part is that I did not know enough Japanese to explain to them what happened. All I can hope is that they understood that I was truly sorry for what happened and that it was not intentional on my part.
The guy who cut my hair tried so hard to use the little English he knew to converse with me, which I appreciated. It was still a super awkward experience since neither of us truly understood the other. I recommend the best way is to show a picture of what you want the cut to look like and have a translator app ready, just in case. It all worked out fine, although the poor guy was clearly not used to curly Indian hair. He looked very confused at what my hair was doing after he had washed and combed it. I wish I could have told him that my hair always acted in this manner after combing it but that was more Japanese than I knew.
I learned to double check times as well as addresses when it comes making appointments in a foreign country. Also, forget the awkwardness and embarrassment of asking someone for directions, because when you can’t read kanji, wasting time looking it up on Google is just not worth it. I want to end this post with just my eternal gratitude to all the people I encountered on this frantic trek to the beauty salon and the people at the beauty salon for accommodating for this poor, confused gaijin.
