Fukada Kyoko

If you have watched any Japanese films or drama, you may have seen this actress Kyoko Fukada.  She is about the same age as me (or older) and I’ve seen many of her dramas/films while in Japan.  Although some says bad things about her, I kind of like her.  She is cute, and I like her hair style and make-up

It was really a coincidence, but I was at Yuko‘s place to get hair cut today, and I saw a photo of Kyoko on the cover page of a Japanese fashion magazine.   Now she has short hair!

According to the magazine, this is the shortest hair that Kyoko has been with.  My image for her always had been “long hair” “brown, light color” “cute”, but now she looks like a lady.  I really love her current new looks.   Unfortunately I have no guts to cut my hair this short, but my hair is now short too.  It’s not because I saw her hair style on the magazine, I had been thinking to cut my hair to medium bob since few weeks ago.  

I love my hair style now, it’s nice and short, and easy to shampoo  I colored hair brown with few low-lights.  It’s summer!   

By the way Kyoko’s skin is so beautiful…  what does she use??

St James Hair Studio

I was very excited to try this hair salon in Northbridge.  One reason is that I was dying to get hair cut, and another is that I wanted to meet this stylist “Kazu”.  I made a booking with Kazu and had a chance to chat with him on Sunday.

Kazu has been working at this St James Hair Studio for 10 years now. He was also a hair stylist in Japan, worked in Tokyo for 9 years, then moved to Perth.  Along with his job at this salon, he goes back to Japan annually to update his skill and knowledge by attending on seminars and catching up with his friends who are also hair stylists.

At the salon, I showed Kazu a sample photo of a hair style and told him how I want my hair to look like, then moved to another chair to get shampoo.  He put a steamed towel on my neck and massaged my head, it was so good.  He told me my muscle is tense – I didn’t know that there’s muscle on the head!  And, he could tell right after touching my head that my body is tired.  He is a pro!

He gave me lots of tips as well.  I asked him how I should dry my hair, naturally or by drier?  How to use hair iron and curler?  He gave me an advice on all the questions I asked, by demonstrating!  He showed me how to dry my hair: wear heat-proof conditioner on the hair first then blow dry completely with strong hair drier.  Then straighten up my fringe with iron, and curl the bottom of my hair with curler.  Wow my hair looks so different…

If you are seeking some tips or answers regards to hair, he is the one  He has many patrons here, including Japanese, Malaysian, Singapore, Australian etc.  I recommend you to book him at least 1 week in advance…  oh and he is going on holiday from 04/Jan till 24/Jan next year.

St James Hair Studio

Shop 2/218 James St, Northbridge WA 6003

Tel: 08 9228 3339

iPhone App – Japanese

Here are some of my favorite apps for iPhone.

<Kiss X Bijin Tokei> website

“Kiss” is the Osaka version of bijin-tokei ”the beautiful woman clock” (I wrote about it before in here ) ranked the first place of the entertainment section at the “Kiss FM Kobe” release first day supported in Kansai area around Kobe by many listers.  Like original bijin-tokei, this “Kiss” is one of the popular apps for iphone.

<Wa Kingyo>

“Wa” means “Japanese” “Japan style”, and “Kingyo” means goldfish.

Pretty goldfishes drawn on the Japanese style of painting swim elegantly.  You will be surprised by their cute movement.  This is similar to “Koi Pond” (I wrote about it here )  Enjoy relaxing time….  This app is created by a Japanese.

<Puff!>

… ummm, this is one of those crazy Japanese stuff.  In this app, you blow into your iphone or rub the screen with fingers, then the skirt of the pretty girl in the picture goes into an upskirt.   There are a few different girls on the screen to choose from and they all wear different clothes, such as yukata (Japanese casual summer kimono) and office lady type of clothes.  To me, I think it’s an obsession and I don’t like it, but this app is ranked in the top 10 and it seems many people around the world is enjoying it.  If you want to have this app on your iphone/touch, please make sure not to show to your girl!

Hair Salon in Japan and Jakarta

My hair is now getting messy again and need to get trimmed …  It’s shame that I didn’t have time to go to a hair salon while I was in Japan.  I think I need to color my hair soon too..  My hair is originally dark dark black, and not straight.  My mum used to cut my hair when I was little, and I always looked like I was wearing a black helmet :p  I don’t like my hair because it’s little wavy, and go messy if I don’t take care of it using treatment and hair wax.

I’m flying off to Jakarta sometime soon and I’m thinking if I should go to a hair salon there… but I doubt if they can do the job as I expect.  I mean, I can’t speak Indonesian and they normally don’t speak English, so it’s gonna be hard to communicate and tell them how I want my hair to be done.  

If I end up going to a salon, I will be with mother-in-law.  If she goes to a salon, she offer me to get “cream bath”.  … I think I wrote about it long time ago on this blog, but when I heard about this “cream bath” thing I thought it was something like a “special treatment”.  Then I found out that hair salons in Jakarta and Japan are pretty different.  :p  I was surprised when they used cold water for shampooing too!  It was a kind of culture shock…  

I think some foreign people will experience culture shock too when they visit Japan’s salon.  I mean, there are some weird hair salons across Japan.  One of them is “maid salon”, where all the staff wear costume of maid and serve you.  It is a kind of cos-pure (short term for costume-play in Japanese)  Some of the salons have a few different kinds of costumes, and their services don’t only limit on hair-cut but also nail care, heard spa, ear cleaning…  Of course they are targeting on male customers ( ? ) though customers are not allowed to take photos inside and touch the staffs.

Well, I heard that hair salons in Perth don’t normally do shampoo and hair-blow as a service (or include in their prices).  If so, do customers go home with hair all over their clothes?  Or with wet hair?   It’s just surprising to me that Japanese salon usually does shampooing and blow-dry as a part of the procedure.

Except for the surprise of cold water, hair salon in Jakarta was fun to me.  Once they spread “cream” on my head, 2~3 staff come over to me and start to massage my arms and shoulders.  Ummm writing about this makes me want to get the massage!  Yes I think I will go to a hair salon in Jakarta.  Not for a hair cut, but a massage perhaps :p

Souvenir from Japan Sep/09

Here are some of the souvenirs I bought from Japan trip.

Most of them are junks from 100 yen shop. :p  In the photo, the two banana cases, pink square kitchen timer, frog looking silicon pinch, yellow shower head are from Seria – one of 100yen shop in Japan.  I actually prefer Seria to Daiso now because the products in Seria are nicer and stylish.  And Daiso sells not only 100 yen products but also 200 yen ~ 500 yen products in the shop, so it’s bit confusing…  although I bought a tea pot from Daiso for 300 yen and it was a good shopping.

The green bean looking toy and white & black square things are from local electric shop near my house.   The green bean toy is called “Puni Puni Edamame” - Electric Popping Soybean Pod Keychain.  It’s just a funny stuff…  The white & black “Human Player” is a toy that you answer 50 questions on the initial setup and create another “you”, then you can watch what another you is doing on the screen anytime.  You can also create other people like your friends or family and play games too.  The personality of another you is made based on your answers.  I bought it because it’s cheap: retail price was about 3600 yen but the shop was selling it at 300 yen!  

The round looking white machines are from Yodobashi Umeda (I wrote about this shop in my previous post).  The one in the box is “Aqua Rain”, a floating fountain with prismatic color light and quiet sound of waterfalls.  The another machine next to it is “Relaxing Spa Light”, a floating mood light with 4 different nature sounds (river, insect, bird and wave).

  Those type of machines are for Japanese people who take bath every night.  We bought them just to remember Japan, even though we hardly take bath in Perth. :p

I just love shopping in Japan.  Every time I go back, there are always something new and they are not that expensive.  In the shops I saw more interesting toys such as Bowlingual Voice – a machine which translates dog’s bowwow into message, Home Star – a home planetarium machine which projects beautiful stars on your ceiling, and you can also chose which day’s stars to be projected: eg 21/Sep/08. etc etc.

If you like these gadgets it’d be fun to just look for some “treasures” in electric shops in Japan.