Cheap (if weird) haircuts - Buan Stylee

I knew at some stage in my Korean journey I would have to get a haircut. Its a pet hate of mine, even at the best of times - the awkward silences, having to look at my squint in a mirror for an extended period of time and having to put on a fixed grin and answer inane questions about imaginary holidays (I make them up, it amuses me!). I thought maybe having my hair cut in Korea would be the answer - they can't speak English! (Well, not if my students are anything to go by!)

My first haircut in Korea was in the TESCO spin off - Homeplus (see earlier blog entries). I thought it was a proper bargain at 7.50 pounds for a cut, and I didn't have to talk to anyone! Plus, Korean hairdressers usually have computers in them so you can go online while you wait for Greg to have his haircut (yes, we are the type of people to get our hair cut together!).

After moving to Buan, and becoming more confident in our surroundings we decided to try out the 'local' hair salon, as recommended to us by another native teacher. I was terrified that they would gurn at us and throw us out of their shop as everyone in Buan seems to hate us, so clinging to Greg for moral support we went to the salon. However, we couldn't have been more wrong - they were super overly friendly and charged us 4.50 for the cut! It was great! The only negative was that my hairdresser didn't speak English but kept trying to and speaking to me in Korean instead, cue lots of me waving my arms and going 'sorry, sorry' and lots of awkward silences. However, I would rather pay 4.50 for an awkward silence than 40 quid - bargain!

Last week, due to the intense heat which now beats down and blights our lives in Korea, I decided it was time to chop some of my hair off - plus I had been Chief Bridesmaid of the year so didn't need to grow my hair for a suitable wedding 'do. Again, we braved the Buan hairdressers. Unfortunately, this time it didn't go so well. We both had our hair cut by the owner of the Salon, who can speak enough English to talk but not enough to understand/properly communicate! So, she spent the whole time saying to me that brown hair was 'very very lovely' asking me if I'd married Prince William and expressing her shock that I was not married. She harassed Greg with the same marriage questions and many other things. For both of us she reserved the weirdest sales pitch ever! I'm used to hairdressers trying to flog me overpriced tat but have never received the Korean/English sales pitch before, which involved her waving a bottle and tub of hair gel in our faces, telling us it was a 'spa', it would 'cool us down' and generally rubbing it in to our scalps and repeating the same words over and over again. It was pretty intense and scary! Not a good thing but we survived, and vowed to never return! - the hair cut was a fiver this time and despite my initial hatred of it, it has grown on me. Still, back to Homeplus next time for some awkward silence!