Hair raising part deux

I asked Ron if there's a Filipino Barber shop in HK where I can go. I need an honest to goodness Filipino barber because the stylists here want to give my hair the Japanese anime treatment.

He asked me to go to Li Yuen street or what locals call "alley-alley" or "ale-ale". It's called as such because aside from it being an alley, there are a lot of ales who offer different beauty services such as manicures, facials, and yes, hair cuts!

I walked past a sign that said "Filipinas Barber Shop" and thought, *BINGO!*

Or so I thought.

The "barber shop" was actually a beauty parlor and the "barber" turned out to be a woman. When I asked the guy if they had male barbers, he assured me that the women there can cut as well as a guy barber. So he asked me to sit down for a few minutes because all the "female barbers" were busy.

Once seated, i looked around the parlor and it was really a disturbing sight. There were 8 chairs - all occupied, there was a karaoke machine with some shrilly voiced girl singing some tagalog song, there was a pot simmering and it smells like sinigang, and overall, it was like a bad salon in Tondo.

Therefore, I left. I'd rather keep my hair long than have it cut in a place like this.

But that isn't where the story ended.

While walking along Nathan Road, I saw someone familiar. It was Ness - one of the hairstylists I worked with in Manila. It turns out he's (yup, Ness is a (s)he) here on an editorial project and today was his day off. So I gathered all the courage I could muster and asked: "did you bring your things? can you cut my hair?"

And now, I am happy to announce, that I have nice, short hair again. Thanks, Ness! This is the first time i'm having a haircut in Hong Kong by a Manila stylist (in a hotel, at that.)

Ahhh... Happy day.