Thursday/Friday, May 15/16

Thursday/Friday, May 15/16

Nail salon. My pedicure was chipping last weekend so I ventured for my first manicure/pedicure since I’ve been in HK. I pass a respectable looking place near our house each day and decided to call for an appointment. The phone call went well and I was scheduled to go in that afternoon. Well, when I walked in, they seemed surprised that I actually showed up to get my nails done. A girl checked me in, called out to someone in the back, shuffled around for about 10 minutes and eventually sat down to do my nails. It took her ages to gather all of her tools, as if she’d never done a pedicure before. Another girl came out of the back a while later. About 20 minutes into it, a guy walks in the front door and looks all nervous. He mumbles something about “5 minutes”. The girls say something else to him and then he hurriedly leaves. They giggle as he leaves. I assume it’s just a guy who’s a little embarrassed to be getting his nails done. But something isn’t sitting well with me. The girl helping me had tons of silver bangles on her wrist that are clanging with every movement. And had long, talon-like nails with gems all over them. My experience with nail technicians is that they don’t wear nail polish because it just gets removed when they go to remove the clients polish. And jewelry just gets in the way. Ok. So is this a front of sorts? Yes, that’s it! Drugs are my immediate thought. I leave the salon with presentable nails and don’t think much of it…Until the next day when I run into the nail gal at the 7-11. Wearing the same short shorts and tummy bearing shirt from the previous day. Wheels start clicking in my head. Nervous guy. Nail technician with talons. Skin-bearing outfit. Confusion over setting up the pedicure station. Wait a minute! They’re not dealing drugs. They’re ladies of the night! Or women of the 5 minute something. Gag.

Some of you know about my cosmetic obsession. One of my all-time favorite things to do when I visit a new city/country is to check out their drugstores. I could spend hours roaming the aisles to see the packaging and varieties of their toothpaste, cosmetics and medicines. Observations so far: hair color aisles offer dark brown to black, no blonde, light brown, red... Cosmetics – lots of skin whitening products, cosmetics with photos of babies on the packaging (“skin as soft as a baby”, “lips as pink as a baby”, etc.) and not much variety of colors. They like their lipstick pink. Tiny bottles of sunscreen. And the greatest/scariest tools – metal ear cleaning tool, metal pimple lancer/blackhead remover and tiny little razors. Have to admit that I bought a hair product that I can’t even tell what it does other than ‘for dry damage on hair tips’. One of the consultants kindly translated for me. And of course entire aisles of Chinese remedies in colorful little boxes which I’d love to be able to read. They remind me of old medicine boxes you see in antique stores or museums.

Elevator at work. It says it can hold 21 people. Our elevator bank services floors 19-34, with our office being on 33. I hopped on today to go downstairs and people piled in from every floor we stopped on. It amazes me how they just keep packing in. I counted 16 of us when the elevator stopped on 25. Panic. Someone started pushing buttons. Nothing. Doors opened 2 inches and shut. Deep breathe. I’m not claustrophobic, but my stomach was getting freaked. Doors opened 2 inches and shut again. Finally, they opened all the way and we all poured out. We were probably only stuck for less than a minute, but what a long minute that was.

Chris arrives on Sunday - yeah!!!!!!