Fall in Korea/First time haircut

Fall in Korea is a really beautiful time.  The leaves all change colors and fall off, the weather is the perfect mixture of sunny with a slight crisp chill in the air.  The one thing I appreciate about Korea is they have all 4 seasons.  The unfortunate part is 'Fall' only lasts about 2 weeks before it turns into a brutally cold Winter.  I'm not sure I'm prepared at all for the rest of this winter, but I'll just have to deal I guess as with everything I've done here. 

So it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I decided to go and get a haircut, for the first time might I add, in Korea.  It wasn't too chilly outside and the neighborhood I was going too wasn't far, so I decided to walk and take some photos of the awesome fall scenery.  More about my haircut experience after the pictures.



Bus stop right outside my apartment.



This is the street I walk on everyday to work. 

I'm kind of nerdy and like doing random effects with my camera. Haha...here we have shadow and leaves on the ground....so artsy of me.

This is right at Jeongja Station which is where I live.  There's this awesome bridge that goes across the river and at night it's really cool and lights up all blue and bright.  I will have to get some night shots.

Just awesome colors.

Pretty yellow.

The streets are littered with leaves all the time.  There are also these fruit/nut things that fall out of the trees and when they open they smell terrible. So even though the sidewalks look pretty they smell like trash mixed with poop. Not awesome haha.

Random statue outside of a big bank.

Where I live there is a lot of random little trails and mini-parks.  This is one of my favorite trails that is parallel to the river.  So beautiful.

Playing with the color option on my camera.

There is always benches everywhere. Everywhere.  Looks neat how the bench is in a bed of leaves.

Awww...love it. I'm pretty sure Fall is my favorite season.

Red.



So many tall buildings where I live.  I love how much effort they put into everything here though.  This is another cool foot bridge across the river, and I just love the lamp posts along the way.



They call it mellow yellow.

Tancheon River.  So spoiled that I have this running through my entire city.

Walkway leading to Sunae where I got my hair cut.

Haircut in Korea.  Cheap. Meticulous. Attentive service. Awesome.   So it was approaching the point of needing a hair cut, and I was definitely weary of what might come of this.  Fortunately a co-worker of mine suggested a place she found and she enjoyed her experience there even though they didn't speak a lot of English.  I figured I would give it a shot and see what happens.  I mean it's just hair...it will grow back (horror images of my mom cutting my bangs back in Elementary school when I moved and they became zigzagged popped in my head).  Anyway, I show up at this impeccable looking salon.  It's very sheek and everything is black, silver, clean lines, modern.  At first glance I'm very impressed and feel like it might all work out.  I approach the front desk and proceed to say hair cut while miming the action for scissors. 

Side note - I've become a hand talker due to working with young children and just in general trying to explain myself when neither party can communicate in the same language. 

They immediately shuffle me to the back waiting area where they take my backpack for me and hang it up in a closet.  They bring me a lovely robe to put on, and 'help' me put it on like a child, but service just the same.  Then a guy comes over and sits down with me and takes a look at my hair and luckily he speaks a little bit of English so I'm able to tell him 'just trim off about an inch'.  I am them sent to get my hair shampooed. Ohhhh mmmmmm geeeee!  Best shampoo job of my life!  If you're a girl reading this you will understand.  Wow, I'm pretty sure it lasted 30 minutes and the girl doing it gave me an amazing head massage.  It was awesome!  Then I went to the chair for the moment of truth. 

Side note - One thing I really respect about the Korean people is how meticulous they are with everything.  They are very much about perfection in their culture, which is both good and bad.  It leads to amazing work, but also lends itself to lots of insecurity and high suicide rates in this country.  I think Korea has one of the highest suicide rates of people under the age of 40 in the world if not in all the Asian countries...but don't quote me on that. 

 Anywho, my hair stylist proceeded for almost an hour to trim my hair.  He had an assistant helping him also, and when it came time to dry my hair both of them had blow dryers and were working on me at the same time.  I apologize for the men reading this again, because only the females will really appreciate this.  It was amazing, such great service and it ended up great!  They also brought me coffee after and there were iPads available if we wanted to play games, etc. At the end of the day my hair cut only cost me about $27 and it was probably the best hair cut I've ever had in my life.  And what's crazy is they don't tip in Korea, not even for services.  I felt almost guilty not being able to tip, but it's part of the culture and not done.  I ended this lovely day by going out to Seoul and having dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant in Seoul.  Fabulous Fall Day in Korea!