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March 30, 2002
Adventures in... Chinatown
Sorry, it's not a story about Hong Kong.
Woke up this morning and looked at the clock. I'd promised myself that if I woke up early enough after last night's late night work, I would haul myself out of bed and check out Dr. Su Yu-Chang's school in Chinatown. Dr. Su teaches Northern Mantis, Bagua, Hsing I, Bachi, Pikua and Tai Chi. I have to say, I was really impressed. There was a palpable camaraderie at the school and the teaching was personal. It wasn't as personal as the attention lavished on students at the Lung Ying school I saw a couple of weeks ago, but this place had a lot more space. The Lung Ying school felt claustrophobic. So, bottom line, I liked this school, but I'm going to see if I can do a trial class first before making a final decision. I still owe the Jeet Kune Do school (Anderson's Martial Arts) a try-out, but I need to get a doctor's note first. Wouldn't mind checking out a Wing Chun school while I'm at it, too. I've been out of the loop for over a year, now, so I've got time to get back into it.
Had lunch with my friend, Kevin, who went to check out Dr. Su's school with me. We tried out a new (to us) Vietnamese restaurant called Nam Phuong. It wasn't bad, but I liked our usual place on Mulberry St. better. The "usual place" became that after we started going there after kung fu classes. Alas, not going to classes in over year, it's not so usual anymore.
The most bizarre experience of the day came after I parted ways with Kevin to find myself a haircut. I used to go to China Beauty Salon on Doyers St. They do a cheap shampoo and cut, but they're a little more on the functional or austere side. Great for basic stuff, but not so much for the fancier stuff. Well, three weeks ago, I changed my haircut over into something that fit more along the fancier side, I guess, though I could probably get away with going back to CBS. I had my hair done at Pell Allison Salon last time: I got it chopped by nearly 4" and had it coloured a red-brown colour that I don't have a name for. This time around, I slipped over to the next block and went to Lee Lee's Beauty Salon. Why did I just ramble on about this? I have no idea.
Anyway, the main reason why I walked into this one instead of going to either of the previous two was... a quick look in the window showed that, with the exception of one man, all of the staff was female with a significant portion of them bloody cute. Yeah, I have a great set of criteria.
Okay, so shampoo and a cut. That's not so bad. It's $13 here, which is only $4 more than CBS. However, this is where my limited Cantonese gets the better of me. Typically, I can crudely describe what I want and get it somewhat close. Most of the time, it's a phrase roughly equivalent to "like last time." Well, you can't do that with a new stylist, not to mention a new stylist where you have no idea how to describe the haircut. Interesting problem, but that wasn't the first one I ran into.
As I was sitting down for a shampoo, the lady that was going to wash my hair asked if I wanted to have my face washed, too. I'll rephrase. She asked, in Cantonese, if I wanted a "face wash." Now, this is a phrase that I'm used to at home as simply washing my face. In the context of this salon, though, it meant "deep facial cleansing." So, rather than saying no after I realized what I was getting into, I just let it ride and found myself out $48, but happily refreshed, exfoliated and... shocked, at what they do in salons that I never knew about.
They have a little vacuum thingie that they can use on your pores. That freaked me out, but at least it wasn't as painful as some of the other things they did. I'm glad I didn't agree to have a Brazilian done on my privates with my super-basic language skills. I did get a couple of blemishes on my cheek burned out with some kind of zapper or laser, though. That hurt like a real bitch. The masochistic part of all this, though, is that I've got five more that could be treated and I'm actually thinking I might get them done in a few months.
What I liked best about this place? The shampoo. Oh my God! It was incredible and came with a rather lengthy massage. Damn, for the extra $4, it's totally worth it!
Right. That's about it, really, except that I got a work-related call around 8 p.m. and now I have to haul my ass in to deal with work stuff on Easter Sunday. Of course, I have no backup because everyone else that's on the team happens to have Easter plans with family and stuff. I'm the only one on the team that has no family in the area and is areligious. That really sucks.
But I have fresh egg tarts and they are making me happy. Or maybe I'm just riding a sugar high. Let's see if I can ride this high to complete a few posts about Hong Kong.
Posted by KinCross at March 30, 2002 08:32 PM