Have you recently taken a good look at your old man?
Well believe it or not, but back in the days, in 2010, your father didn’t look that bad.

One day I went to Nagano to get a haircut I entered the shop and there were only 2 employees, one with a customer, one at the counter.
I took a seat and tried to explain to the lady how I wanted my hair cut, when a 3rd employee appeared from the back office.
So I was sitting there getting my hair cut, chatting along when I realized that all over sudden there were 6 employees in the room for us two customers. I had 5 different people washing, cutting, combing, my hair and it was not due to my conversational skills. Back then, my Japanese sounded like a four years old girl babbling.
In order to make some conversation, I asked if they know any bars, but they didn’t just answer that question. They drew me a map of the city, with all important sights, and 5 different bars and all in Kanji, which I could not read.

I did hear a few times what a pity it was, that I was not single, but they found your picture very adorable (don’t worry, I only showed pictures where you were fully cloth and not spitting or pissing at me)

The haircut was pretty good, and while I was getting to the counter, one asked me what I will do in Nagano, I said: “I want to go to a coffee shop.” So they started debating to which coffee shop I should go. Thats when the owner, an 50+ lady came out and said something along the lines: “Don’t send him there, send him to this cafe. Oh, he will never find that, draw him a map.”
That is when I got my second map drawn because it didn’t fit on the first one.

That’s what I call service.

The haircut was 4100 Yen and I gave the lady 5100 Yen. She was looking at me and chatting when she handed me 3000 Yen back as change. The idiot I am I pointed her mistake out and only took 1000 Yen back.

Four employees escorted me to the door, two escorted me to the street and one decided that it was irresponsible to let me go alone to the café, so she walked with me for 20 minutes to the coffee shop, but not before she brought me to the local Diesel shop (Diesel was a brand for designer jeans) because she saw me wearing a pair and I said I like Diesel.

I wrote that story down the day it happened, so it is 99% true. The 1% fiction is, my Japanese didn’t sound like a 4 years old babbling, more like a 3 years old, but I am not going to admit to that.

Being blond in Japan is pretty good for ones ego and well, I didn’t look that bad as well.