The Shampoo Adventures

I have very curly hair that is gorgeous and manageable in ideal conditions. Those conditions are having conditioned air in the car I drive to school, conditioned air in my school, conditioned air in my home, and, finally, good shampoo and conditioner. I live in Okinawa where the population is used to the heat and so do not use air conditioners nearly as much as I am used to back home. Fine. It's fine. Really. I, too, have gotten used to it. (Bear in mind I say this now when the weather is nice and cool.) I don't turn on my air conditioner. I use the natural island breezes to keep my tiny apartment cool. I walk to school most days in the humidity, so whatever I attempt to do to my hair in the morning to make it look nice is lost by the time I arrive. The shampoo I use seems to be very popular here, so when I first arrived that was the one I grabbed. After almost six months I am just about to run out and thought I might splurge a little and buy a nice shampoo and conditioner like I used back home.

Within three blocks of my apartment there are three hair salons. One is for men so I skipped that one. The other two are for women. I tried the cool modern looking one above the post office first. I always mix up the name and so now I just call it Taco Loco. The name looks something like that. I walked in and said in the best Japanese I could, "shampoo?" Good thing the word for shampoo is the same in English and Japanese. The woman showed me to their shampoo display on one wall of the salon. There were three bottles on the shelves. Three. Is this culture shock to walk into a hair salon and expect a wall of shelves for shampoo to be filled with shampoo and conditioners or varying purposes and sizes? Perhaps. She tried to explain to me what each one was for by pointing to the English phrases written on the bottles. Two were for color treated hair and the other was for something in Japanese. Since I don't have Japanese hair, I figured that wasn't the one for me.

The next day I went to the hair salon in the opposite direction of Taco Loco called Blue Something. I walked up to the door and found that they were closed. There was no sign explaining when they would be open again so I left without shampoo again. I later talked to my supervisor and she explained that men's hair salons are closed on Mondays while women's hair salons are closed on Tuesdays. I thought that was interesting. I also found it interesting that the salons are still segregated here--at least in my experience, which isn't much.

I later spoke to my friend, the former cat. She said that I should check out the salon she goes to and she gave me directions to a place off Kokusai Dori behind the Lawson's. For anyone who has lived in Okinawa, you know that I ended up walking around a lot that day. Here in Okinawa there really aren't street signs, so everyone gives directions by landmarks. You can tell a person the neighborhood name and maybe a main road name or number but then you give them landmark directions. For any of you who know me you know this falls into Worst Nightmare category for me. 

I did take the opportunity to explore a street called Heiwa Dori. It is kind of like a covered outdoor mall. The shops are tiny and open onto the street. There are all kinds of stores selling food, clothes, shoes, etc. There was even a shop of umbrellas I wish I had taken a picture of. There was a little old woman sitting in this stall bursting with umbrellas. It would have been a great picture. I didn't take the picture because I do have a shy streak, believe it or not. Walking further down Heiwa I turned the corner and walked down a side street and found something out of place. Here, let's play a game. Which of these does not belong: Japan, China, Korea, Mexico. Yeah, I found a shop selling Mexican souvenirs like day of the dead boxes and wrestling masks (which I know isn't hard to find her in the land of wrestling fandom), Frida postcards, etc. It was surprising to come across this little shop. I wanted to buy something but I wasn't sure how much my shampoo was going to cost so I didn't.

I finally left Heiwa Dori to find my shampoo. I followed my friend's instructions to go down Kokusai Dori to the Lawson's that's kind of set back off the street. There are two Lawson's set back from the street on Kokusai Dori. I went down the further one and saw a pretty hotel, what looked like a park, lots of motorcycles parked on the sidewalk and then not much of anything. I called her back and asked and discovered I was at the wrong Lawson's. I walked all the way back up Kokusai Dori to the first Lawson's and turned down the street to find cute little boutiques and an odd used toy and clothes shop--American toys and clothes. At first I thought it was just another clothes store. Then I noticed all the Gizmos hanging from the ceiling. 

I walked in to find all sorts of old toys from the 60s, 70s, and on up. There were a lot of Peanuts characters and other plushies. I didn't buy anything, but I am still curious as to whether they were antique prices or not. I walked a little further and made the turn and found the shop where the cat was sitting outside. I should have known a cat would be involved...

I bought my fancy shampoo and conditioner and paid about 5300￥ for it. How is my hair now, you ask? Eh, it's alright. Not quite where it would be in America but I still haven't turned on my air conditioner. That'll be the next test.