hair cut

Today I went to have my hair cut. I dread this because I don't know the right words to get the cut or look that I want. And I cringe when I want to get a perm (this is why I haven't had one in months!). Even bringing in a picture of the style that I want has left me with a hairstyle that I don't particularly care for. Most of the stylists don't like to be left up to the task of creating a look for you either. Most like to be told. They do sometimes take things into their own hands and that's when I end up with a cut/perm that I didn't request. One technique they do on their own is thinning the hair. They put a scissor that cuts only in a couple of areas at a time to "thin" out your hair. I don't like when they do this because after a month or two my hair looks like a bush (because it grows back to the volume it was). So, I think to remedy this layered hair, I may have to stay away from the salons for a year or two!

Other than that, it was a very nice sunny day (for the morning part anyway). I wanted to share with you, our cyclamen plant. This plant is very hearty. It looks like it's dead during the summer (I still water it though), but come autumn, the leaves start to sprout and gets to be very leafy and bushy. I was amazed at this plant. I mean, look how many blooms it has! I've seen other cyclamen plants around in the area, but they don't have as many flowers as ours does.

Actually, this plant has a little story behind it. About 4 years ago, we bought it for Satoshi's grandma, when she was in the hospital. We were so happy with it, because it had some blooms and looked very cheery. But after Satoshi's mom saw it, she said, "You can't give her that." I asked, "Why?", but didn't get an answer. And we ended up buying her a bouquet of cut flowers.

The reason why you shouldn't give a person in the hospital a potted plant is because it has roots. In Japanese, this is called "ne-tsuke". It is a play-on words but they believe that if you receive a potted plant, you will "root" yourself in bed. In other words, you'll be in the hospital for a LONG time.

This year, I cut back the leaves a little too much, so it looked bald until the flowers started to bloom. The golden crest tree in the background is our Christmas tree (since they don't sell real cut ones here at Christmastime), it is the second one since we've lived here. The other plants were bought at the dollar store (100 yen shop). I've found that these plants are the most heartiest and if it dies, it was only a dollar, right??

Well, enough rambling. I wanted to share with you another food item of Hinamatsuri, it's called Hina-arare (Girl's Day rice crackers). They are colored in the pink, white and green, the chocolate ones are arare covered with chocolate. The hina-arare and mochi were bought at the following shop:
Matsuyahonpo
Hankyu Ishibashi shopping arcade
Phone: 072-761-8168

I also bought this pastry at a bakery, Taro pan, in our shopping arcade. It's name is Caramel almond. It is puff pastry with a dollop of cake batter baked in the middle, caramel and almonds cover the bottom. They display it upside down with the caramel side up. It was really good, and it wasn't really sweet. It really went well with green tea.

Hope you have a great weekend.