Yuko Home-Based Hair Salon

I had my hair cut and colored in Perth few weeks ago. The lady who did my hair is Japanese. I knew about her from Perth News – a Japanese website in Perth. She currently uses her house as a salon.

As I hadn’t had my hair cut for awhile, my hair was a mess! She showed me few Japanese hair catalogs, and I decided to go with light marron color hair. I asked her to make a fringe too, just for a change. My hair is around 10cm below shoulders, and it was $120.00 including cut, color, shampoo and dry. I think it’s pretty cheap.

She said that she’s been working as a hair stylist in Tokyo since she graduated her school in Japan. She also has experiences working in a hair salon in Perth, and last year went back to Japan for 3 months as holiday. As soon as her old colleagues knew she was in Japan, they called her up and asked her to work in the hair salon that she used to work before. According to this story, she must have been a good worker!

When I told her that I was getting married in few weeks, she offered me to get aqua-gel nails. She’s into nails (manicure, pedicure) too and brought a machine from Japan.

This machine produces UV -Ultraviolet light. Aqua -gel become solid under UV, so what she does is brush aqua-gel on nails and put the fingers inside of this machine. After 30 seconds the gel becomes solid (but not too hard). I decided to have this aqua-gel nails done, I knew I had to do something with my nails before the wedding anyway…

I got graduated pink color with silver stones.

Her price list:

☆CUT　Mens $20 / Ladies $30

☆Colour $100～（include cut&shampoo&pretreatment&browdry）

☆Perm $100～（include cut&shampoo&pretreatment&browdry）

☆super straight perm $200～（include cut&shampoo&pretreatment&browdry）

She uses Japanese products such as Shiseido、Milbon.

8am～3pm
YUKO san
0450 32 4916
happy_kappy [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] jp

Milk and Honey

I think this place is perfect for someone who wants to have a nice breakfast, or a relaxing coffee time in the afternoon.   I found that the menu at Milk and Honey sounds pretty good  I was always thinking that lots of cafes around Perth have very similar menus, very basic ones (bacon + egg, eggs benedict etc) but I feel like eating something different sometimes!  According to the menu at Milk and Honey, they have some basic menus such as Bacon and Egg, Croissants and Big Brekkie (at Milk and Honey it’s called “The Big One”) as well as .. ↓↓↓ 

Fremantle Chocolate Factory

When my partner and I were riding around Fremantle the other day, we decided to drop by this factory and have a look around.  Although this place opens 7 days a week, and has been advertising on one of Japanese news magazines in Perth, it was my first time going there.  

While we were parking our vespa, I saw few Japanese people (I could tell!) going towards this factory.   Hmm seems that the advertising on the Japanese magazine is really effective, otherwise this place is hard to be found and no one would realize there is a chocolate factory in Fremantle – especially tourists. (‘x’)

As we entered the factory I saw Japanese news magazines on a rack, and a sign board on the wall written in Japanese!  Wow lots of Japanese people must come here often.

They sell chocolate with a wide variety of flavors, and the packaging has a logo of “Chocolate Factory Fremantle”, so they make great souvenirs.  There are free tasting chocolate (milk, dark and white), and I tasted white chocolate buttons.  They are pretty sweet.

What I found interesting is that they also sells some molded chocolate : shaped into some animals, gift basket etc.  I thought they are really cute, and I almost bought a treasure box shaped chocolate.  Then I realized “wait, who am I gonna give this to??  I can’t bring it to Japan as it might melt (as it is hot in Japan), and partner’s parents can’t have lots of sugar.”  It would be a good gift if you have someone who loves chocolate.

They also sell some handmade fudge delivered from Margaret River Fudge Factory as well as Morish Nuts products.

You can see inside of factory through windows.

Yum Cha

Do you like Dim Sum?  In Perth you can get them pretty cheap as compared as in Japan.

Which Dim Sum dish do you like?  My favorites are…

Fried Squid (everyone’s favorite!), Steamed Prawn Dumplings, Prawn in Rice Flour Rolls, Chicken Feet, GInger Tripe, and mango pudding.

Those dishes are what I order every time I go out for yam cha.  I know some people don’t like chicken feet, tripe etc, but I love those offal (if it’s cooked nicely!)

Yes, looks little gross… :p

By the way do you know why this dining experience (eating small servings of different foods) is called “Yam Cha”?  Yam Cha in Chinese character (飲茶) means “drinking tea”, which means that you need to drink lots of tea while having those food as the foods are usually oily and high in fat.  Drinking Chinese tea helps digesting those oily food.  That’s why you need to order Chinese tea at Yam Cha restaurants!