Hilary Meets the Land of the Morning Calm

Under recommendation of a work colleague, Thursday night after work Saeko and I sprinted to Itaewon in search of the Green Turtle. I was told that the owner, Michel, was a flamboyant hairdresser, who had a good taste in style and spoke fluent English.



After trading our shoes for slippers I was quickly in a chair. The hair washing was accompanied with a quick but nice scalp, neck, and shoulders massage, which was great after a day at work. In reality Michel functioned mostly as translator, as he had several woman working for him, and several of us foreigners sitting in chairs. He would move in between us and take over for a few minutes doing more specific styling, and then turn to one of the Korean women and give them instructions on what to do next.











In the end though, my hair was back to the puff and spike that I like, and the total cost was 30,000 won (I added a 5,000 won tip...I wasn't sure if I should or not, especially since I read multiple times that in Korea you never tip, but I wasn't sure if haircuts were different...)

After, Saeko and I wandered the streets until we found a nice Irish pub to have dinner. We failed to take pictures of the yummy food, but we did get pictures of our drinks!


Since we also heard that on Thursday nights, many bars have ladies nights in which we get to drink for free, we hit up one bar before going home. Due to lack of knowing where else to go, we were directed by some foreigners on the street to the Loft on the main drag. We were warned not to expect much in terms of the atmosphere, but it did feature free drinks for the ladies, every night. The place made us instantly think of a mix of the Mulligans and the Maysen, only set in Seoul, so the locals were probably US military men instead of hell's angle's folk. We didn't stay long, but now we can both say we've been there and seen it!