Miin Nara Jeonnam University Branch_2018.04.26

The weather has warmed up. It was cool for a few days while it rained, but as if such days won't come anymore, the daytime is full of intense sunlight. The streets are full of trees with deep green foliage, and since this is a university district, at lunchtime countless college students walk along the back-gate street. On such a street there's a place I've been going to lately. It's the Miin Nara Jeonnam University branch. The Miin Nara Jeonnam University branch is a hair salon at the back gate of Jeonnam University. Hair salon? Beauty parlor? Hmm, a place where you get your hair cut? I'm not sure which expression is best, but when I think of the saying that 'language' reflects thought, I always find myself wondering whether there might be some better word. Reflecting my own recent experiences, this place, for me, is closer to a place I go to rest than simply a place to trim and tend to my 'hair.'
I am very, very, very far from what people call a power blogger. If I were to pick a few 'competencies' an ordinary power blogger ought to have, there would be things like 'prolific output,' 'promotion,' 'use of emoticons,' and 'use of the highly accessible Naver blog,' but I am not a full-time blogger, nor a blogger who churns out prolific writing, I hardly use emoticons, and I don't use the highly accessible Naver blog either. (I have one, but I rarely use it.) On top of that, the writing I produce at one sitting tends to be long. Because of writing that doesn't come out short, I invest a lot of time in my writing. These days, on top of that time, one of my writing habits—'rewriting'—has been added in, so it takes a very, very, very long time..

Returning to the main story, it's now been almost four months since I came to Gwangju, and I've always been tending to my hair here. There are various reasons, but the first of them was curiosity about an app called 'Kakao Hair Shop.' Using the app itself wasn't difficult. On top of that, I needed a 'place close by.' A place close to the library. Of course there are some behind the business school and the College of Humanities too, but those places were unverified because I couldn't see reviews of them. So I trusted the enormous volume of reviews for the Miin Nara Jeonnam University branch and chose it. And in a way, that was also the easiest method of choosing for me.
Second, there are many of you working at this hair salon too, but when I first chose my current stylist 'A,' I was drawn to 'empathy' in her profile. It was especially so because it was a time when I had few friends. This expectation of mine was suitably met. You could say the term empathy-type stylist suited her perfectly.
Third, I could trust her. I tend to always believe in people. My current disposition is such that, when I still see in people a kind of purity or a passionate side toward something, I want to keep seeing those sides. Luckily, that stylist 'A' had those sides too.
Above all, the most important thing lay in the point of agreement in finding a personal style. On this point too, I was satisfied. Before going to the military I stuck to long hair, and after coming back from the military I always stuck to short hair. In an era when no one wears a mohawk, I went around with a mohawk. It didn't matter whether it was a soft mohawk or a hard mohawk. I always tend to dislike trendy hairstyles, so even when the two-block cut was all the rage I always said 'just please don't do the two-block,' and even when the comma hair or the side part was all the rage I said 'absolutely' don't do those. To that extent, hairstyle was used as a kind of tool of self-expression for me, and stylist 'A' understood this point well. Even though I didn't explain much. There are more reasons I could write, but for now this seems to be about the point that relates to professionalism as a 'stylist,' so I'll write only this much for now and take a quick look at the interior.

The photos shown here are of the second floor. In terms of the building it corresponds to the third floor, and considering only the interior space of the shop it's the 'upper' space. This space opens only on Thursdays and Saturdays, and I went in for the first time today. I liked it very much. The 'low table' for 'conversation' was, fundamentally, a spatial arrangement that brought me a lot of joy.
I haven't taken photos of the lower floor yet, but the tables on the lower floor aim more for 'personal space' than for being 'open.' If an occasion to take photos comes up later, I plan to take them, so you can refer to next month's review.
For those using the Kakao Hair Shop application for the first time, I'd first like to say you should consider the 'size of the shop' a bit. The bigger a shop gets, the more you may certainly like its 'organized aspect,' but the human touch drops by that much. A user who values the human touch should choose a place that's small in size. But these days there are many corporate-style hair salons, so it can be hard to find such a place. Still, it's not as though they don't exist, so I recommend looking for one.
Second, since you pay the fee in advance, it's good to book on a day you can definitely go. In my case this point was very convenient. The comfort of being able to go exactly at the set time, get it done, and come back was enough to make me feel the value of the booking system.
Third, you can make a choice that uses your own wallet situation. Since the price each person considers reasonable differs, the fact that you can find a point of agreement on this to some degree through the application is, I think, a good point for 'female customers,' for whom it costs comparatively more.
I'll write only this much for now, and for a while I'd like to leave behind at least a simple photo each time I go, about once every four weeks. That's it for today.