Been a while.

Jesus this place is dusty. My bad. Due to several lame excuses such as computer problems, having a cold and maybe being a bit lazy, I haven't got round to updating the blog for a few weeks.

The main reason really is that there hasn't been a hell of a lot to talk about. Not that I've been bored. I've just been getting into the swing of daily life, learning to cook for myself, shopping for bargains (40p a pot for Korean cup noodles - 1.20 in a certain village shop I know). And I've really been hitting the books aswell, I'm dead set on learning the lingo even if I haven't quite got the hang of English yet. None of this is really blog material, so I haven't included it.

Notable events of the past few weeks include going to the last day of the sumo. Unfortunately we left it too late to get tickets so we couldn't actually go in, but we hung around outside for a couple of hours and watched some of the wrestlers arriving.

The interesting thing about this is that all the wrestlers (with the exception of the real legends of the sport) turn up on foot, or on public transport. They don't get special treatment, they are humble. It's like seeing George Michael climb out of a black cab outside Wembley Stadium before going on stage to scar Wembley's legacy forever.



Today I had my first Japanese haircut. I had originally planned to do this yesterday, and set out to do so. I came across dozens of barber shops and hair salons with prices ranging from 4-20 pounds. I found a nice-looking place and walked in. Before I'd even had a chance to open my mouth the old guy sitting in a chair said "No!". In the friendliest possible way with the nicest smile, he just didn't want to cut my hair. It put me off and I went back home.

Today I asked my housemate Jeung-Eun, who is fluent in Japanese, if she would accompany me and help relay my instructions to the barber. We went to another place, where the haircut cost a whopping 5 pounds and I let this dude loose on my head.

I watched him in the mirror the whole time. He was playing my head in the same way a harpist or a violinist plays his instrument. He had an orchestral elegance in his motion and his scissors never lost the rhythm, even when they were nowhere near my head. snip snip snip... snip snip snip...

And after an intense crescendo with the clippers it didn't turn out too bad, you know. A bit shorter than I was expecting but I'm sure I'll grow into it.

I've been taking some pictures of the house and neighbourhood so the next update will most probably be some kind of virtual tour... I almost made that sound interesting.

For all my pics click HERE!!!