virtualberta

Today (or actually, yesterday) was Taiwan's Labor Day. We had the day off from work. I didn't realize we had a holiday till Monday. This keeps happening to me in Taiwan. One of my co-workers or a friend will say something about a holiday a couple of days before the said event, and I respond, "oh really? I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me because I would have gone to work otherwise!"

Despite the fact that today was a holiday and thus, theoretically, an opportunity to sleep in, I did not get a chance to do so because I wanted to have breakfast with my friend Jeff. He is an equities analyst at JP Morgan Chase here in Taipei, so I figured, catch him before he goes off to work (those analysts never take Real Holidays). I asked him to call me when he woke up, and then I would meet him for breakfast. Jeff woke me up at 9:15a.m...I guess if you are one of those who regularly get up around 6a.m., then that's really sleeping in...but not for me!

Later, I took my sleep-deprived self to get a haircut at Jen's stylist. Apparently, this is also President Chen Shui-bian's stylist, although I'm not about to take style cues from Taiwanese politicans. Though the hair salon is located in the Presidential Office, it is open to the public. Jen's haircuts have looked great, and (the biggest draw) the cuts are cheap - NT$380 (about US$11). At that rate, I could afford to try it out at least once. Linda and Eugenio also went to get their hair cut. When I left, Linda's hair was still being worked on, so I can't ascertain the quality of the final result, but Eugenio's cut was very nice. As I told them, Eugenio looked like he could be the kind of guy that dates two women at once (i.e. very suave).

The other benefit of getting your hair cut in Taiwan (espeically if you are tired, as I was) is that they give you a nice scalp massage while shampooing (mine felt like I was being massaged for at least twenty minutes). Later, they had me sit in one of those massaging chairs while rinsing my hair. Ahhhh.

Oh, and I like my cut very much.