Saturday 26 June 2010

Check your knees!

The past two weekends I've helped out with various conferences and haven't had much time to relax or spend time with U. So the other night I went out to visit him (he lives just under an hour out of Tokyo). This makes my morning commute to work longer but actually easier as it has less transfers and if I get to the station with enough time to spare I can sit the entire way.

While many people sleep, the other day I got nearly an hour of work done on my current knitting project, an almost-finished colourful interlac shawl. The woman beside me was equally industrious – spending the entire time doing her make-up. For somebody who has a make-up routine that can be done in about 5 minutes, the length of the process unfolding beside me was boggling. She spent the first at least 20 minutes doing basework – putting various cremes and lotions onto her face. I lost count of just how many, and how many little bottles she used. While I’m fairly sure she didn’t have a rather large shawl-in-process taking up most of her purse, I’m still not sure how she managed to get everything into her purse. I think it was some sort of black hole or clown car for all the small pouches she kept on bringing out! Having finished the foundation of her face she went on to spend 5 minutes admiring her face in the mirror while smoothing and patting and twirling her hair with her fingers. Then came time for her to address her eyes – the eyelashes got crimped and curled before liner and colour were added. This was followed by another 5 minutes of mirror gazing and hair-patting.

She had just pulled out another little pouch and was about to start on the next step when my stop came, so I didn’t get to see the finished product. As I got off and dodged other passengers, however, I couldn’t help but think to myself that no matter how much attention and time she spent on her face, the overall affect would be ruined by the fact that she hadn't bothered to spend even a minute to check her outfit when she put it on in the morning. There was a glaringly large run in her stocking right at her knee...

3 comments:

  1. Haha maybe it was because of the run in her tights that she was doing her face? You know, make sure there was so much going on up top that nobody would think to look down there. Having said that though, bloody hell I can be up showered dressed hair dried made up and out the door in way less time than she spent on her face alone. Were you able to get a look to see what she was like before it all went on?

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  2. The time was definetly better spent knitting, and if it was a 'new' face she wanted she could have knitted herself a balaclava!!!

    Life in Tokyo is never without its moments!!

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  3. I was in the womens car of the train again this morning for the long commute to work this morning again, and have decided it should be called the make-up car instead - a good half of the women were doing make up! Most were industriously going a their eyes - including one woman with the eyelash curler tongs. They looked enough like a weapon to me that I wouldn't want to try to get them through airport security! But then I wield sharp pointy sticks... ;)

    Umebossy - the woman wasn't drop dead gorgeous, and honesty her make-up didn't impress me, but then I was paying more attention to her knee...

    Achan - the shawl is almost off the needles, and yes, it will so be worth it especially months from now when it actually gets cool enough that make up doesn't melt from your face and a shawl feels nice around your shoulders! ;)

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