Day 503 In Beijing: Shave And A Haircut, 2 Bits.

 

 

Jill and I returned home and I decided to get a haircut.

My hair wasn’t that long but I wanted to try and get a shave also as I’ve never had anyone shave my face before, and since this was a vacation, I thought I’d try something new.

The barber’s shop was right across the street from Andac’s apartment so we showed up and sat down.

He had been drinking coffee, at the little cafe near Andac’s apartment, and came right over.

His son was with him and they both came over.

Strangely enough, he sent his son away with some very serious instructions, just as we were about to begin.

Little did I realize that he was having his son get some more coffee as the barber served us either Turkish coffee, or tea, with my shave and a haircut.

Okay, I have to admit I know about 20 words in Turkish and none of them really have anything to do with shaves or haircuts.

I basically pantomimed the length of how short I wanted my hair cut and that I wanted a shave.

The barber, as you can see in many of the pictures, had a mischevious grin when he was working on me and only later, in the middle of the haircut, did I understand why.

He was going to give me an ear waxing.

Yes, an ear waxing.

Now, I’ve had waxing on my eyebrows and a few other places, but near IN MY EARS!

I was a bit reticent, to say the least.

However, as I was here to try new things, I decided I’d give it a go.

It took a few minutes for him to apply the wax to my ears, and also under my eyes, and he was smiling and laughing the whole time.

We were also as I was thinking, “This will make a great blog post.”

Jill kept taking pictures as she seemed to enjoy the torture I was about to undergo and I wasn’t that worried about what might happen.

As the wax dried, he continued to work on me and then, without much notice, he pulled the right ear wax out.

It was pretty darn surprising and a bit painful.

It wasn’t horrible but it was noticeable.

The barber kept laughing and seemed to be enjoying this silliness.

We kept drinking of coffee, enjoying the haircut, shave, wax, face massage and whatever else, until it was over.

It took about 1 hour, in total, and cost about $18 USD.

A heck of a deal for a heck of a good time.