Back on the tubes, Part II

Whenever you ladies come to visit beautiful Okinawa, I have a place you gotta visit.

Cocock's. Sounds like Co-Co's. It is absolutely AMAZING. A spa/hair salon place. You walk in and there is an Indonesian theme, beautiful fountain with these tropical flowers in the fountain. Our sponsor (who also turns out to be a paraprofessional in my room) brought me, a substitute teacher she's friendly with and a friend from her church. You sit in these huge leather reclining chairs and there is a book of nail designs to choose from. Me being Miss Indecisive had lots of difficulty with so many choices. I finally chose between two and had the nail artist pick which one she thought was cuter. You saw what she went with at the top. It was a different experience than the nail place Jessica and I frequented back in the 'burg. They are really into nail art-no one gets a plain pedicure. The nail art is also very respected and so graceful. It was really a unique experience.

People here in Japan are very particular about shoes and feet. You always take your shoes off when you enter a home. At Cocock's you take your shoes off on the ground level and then take two steps up to a platform where all the magic happens. At all the houses and apartments we've visited while house hunting we've had to take our shoes off. People have special slippers in their homes, one to keep by the door when you enter from the outside, and another that is exclusively for bathroom use. It apparently is quite embarassing to be caught with the bathroom slippers outside of the bathroom. The mama-sans at the school have shoes for inside the building and their outside shoes are kept by the school door. I want to know more about the shoe tradition. I will update you as soon as I know.