Cut

Like many other humans, my hair tends to get longer over time and needs cutting every once in a while; I knew this time would come sooner or later, though I put it off as long as I could. Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and headed down to Lotte Mart (our local mega-store that offers a wide, but somehow not wide enough array of products and services—groceries: yes, appliances: yes, hair salon: yes, chairs: no) to give it a whirl. My fear was that, like so many men I see on the street, I would leave looking like either Kim Jong-Il or Rain. (There’s one guy at work who’s sidestepping the issue and taking this opportunity to grow out his hair. I think most of you know that’s not a very good look for me…)

Even in the States, I usually have a pretty tough time trying to describe how I like my hair cut, so I had even lower expectations working through a language barrier. Thankfully, there was one woman who spoke a little English and could translate the vagueness I was describing into sensible Korean. When I got in the chair, it was pretty clear they didn’t see hair like mine very often (read: brown, thick, and wavy), at least not naturally-occurring. (No less than two boys in my kindergarten class have had their hair dyed and permed. My kindergarten class.)

It took a lot longer than I expected, but the woman who cut my hair was very professional and did a pretty good job working with my tangled mop. Katie was pleased, so by that metric it was a success. It was cheap, too! Less than $12 USD for the whole deal, no tipping allowed (at least I hope so, because I didn’t…).

Connected

Yay! We now have our own, real-life internet connection! No more wi-fi stealing. No more holding the laptop up to the window. No more or random connection flakiness. All is right with the world now that we can watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report mock that silly American election process from across the Pacific.

And Skype should work a lot better now, so if you don’t have an account yet and want to keep in touch, you should get one so you can call us for free (and video chat, too). Send us an email to set up a time and we can figure out something that works for both our time zones (usually in the morning or evening Eastern time).

One year wiser

So, it was my birthday last week, and I’m going to write another post with all the embarrassing photos and details, but here’s a sneak peek: It involved pink flowers, a sparkly party hat, and screaming kindergartners. Stay tuned for more.