My hardened eyes see only shades of gray. - Biohazard, Shades of Gray

What do you think of when you find a gray hair on your head? The normal response is one of fear, disgust and thoughts of aging. The first few ones you find, you may grab the tweezers and yank them out as fast as you can.

I believe I found my first ones on my head during my sophomore year of college. There were times, I would have my friend Courtney sit there with tweezers and pull them all out as they began to multiply on my head. Then, there was the day she did this and then stopped. Put down the tweezers and told me there were just too many.

What?? POOOOOORRR QUUUEEE????

Sigh. It was a done deal. I had "gray hair". I called my mom soon after that and she told me about how she had gone gray at a young age as well. The next time I drove home from college she looked at my head and then said, "oh, it wasn't THAT bad...".

What?? Por queeee?

I hadn't even gotten into nursing school. I wasn't even 21. I couldn't drink, but I had gray hair?

I began to color my hair. Then, sometime did highlights. They made it harder to see the gray when it grew in, but it was just too expensive for a college student. Plus, my hair grows so fast, I had to get it done every month!

I eventually got in the habit of going every month to the hair salon. The most recent place in Jacksonville, my hair stylist, Sarah, told me that I was about 50-60% gray.

What? Oh, whatever. I'm past the shocked point now.

She was awesome and got me all the supplies and hair color (from Italy) to take with me to Japan, since I didn't know where I was going to go when I first got here. She even had a lesson and showed Cameron how to do it. :) I've done it here in Japan on my own 3 times now. Having a big shower room with a mirror definitely helps. It has a mirror and I can do the color and spray it off the floor if I make a mess.

No one believes me when I tell them how gray my hair is until I let it grow some and then show them. I wish people would just believe me when I tell them. haha.

Some make gray hair out there look goooood.

Or white. Why do guys look so good with gray?

Maybe I should just color ALL of it gray at a young age?

Or cut it super short and let it do its thing?

Hard to see with the light, but there's about 1 inch of grey at the root.

There it is...

Or, just let myself go and end up looking like the way I think I will look in my head...

I won't go into how I have discovered gray random hairs in other areas, but let's just say there is no use. It's here. Until they discover a way to alter the hair at the root, I'll just keep on coloring. 

I have a theory since my heart rate generally stays around 90-112 or so, that maybe I'm just aging twice as fast as people with a heart rate of 60. At this rate, I'll go through menopause by the age of 35. 

I'm going to be 28 on Sunday. My name is Candice and I have gray hair. It's just something I have to come to terms with and accept. Things could be worse. I could be losing my hair.

Time is a train, makes the future the past. Leaves you in the station, your face pressed up against the glass. - U2, Zoo Station

Since I got here in January my life has been pretty busy. The pace here with everything going on at work is a lot faster than Jacksonville, to say the least. SO, it seemed every day I had off for a while happened to fall on a monsoon rain day and I was getting very frustrated at no chances of exploring.

I FINALLY had a gorgeous day out and I was free from work! SO, Cameron and I went on a trek to Japan to find Domo Kun toys and decorations for my birthday party. Domo is a character for one of the tv stations here, NHK. They had a store in the Tokyo train station, so we thought we'd go.

We first were going to try a different toy store that reportedly had Domo items as well.

Our walk to the train station is about 20 minutes if you are walking casually. I have made it in 15, but then the Japanese looked at me like they might have to call an ambulance, so usually I walk slower. :D

I wanted to document our trip to the train with photos, so you can see what our walk is like. Every now and then I take the train to work and leave about 5:30am. The sun comes up here a little before 5, so it's actually a nice walk in the morning. 

From the end of our street. We live in Ikedacho. That's our neighborhood. it's a pretty new development area and the homes are actually really nice. A lot of schools around, so the homes are typically families.

We walk a block from our street and head down these stairs

Then, turn to walk down this path. I think it's also a small road, but I haven't seen any cars going up or down it much, but there are some that park there at times, so I guess they do.

We could hear the little kids singing while they were out playing on the playground. They are so cute. most of the time, little kids are scared of me for some reason...

This hill may look innocent, but walking up it is awful. It's actually really steep. Some of these little, old Japanese women can book it up so fast and not look winded at all!

A few kiddos trying to escape! haha. They were so cute. More gathered as we walked by and I wanted to take more pics, but we had to make the train so I had to keep on.

Look at the solar panels on this house.

Some homes here have statue dogs, which I'm not sure if they have it as decoration or to scare away people or what, but this one caught my eye the first time I walked to the train and I say hello every time I pass now. He looks like a "Petey" or something.

At the bottom of that hill/path, we cross a street and walk through another neighborhood.

Those containers are where they collect trash every morning. The trash is rather complicated and they separate EVERYTHING and wash everything prior to throwing it away so it might be recycled. It's pretty impressive. I should make a blog entry about that some day.

Now, down another little path.

Vending machines everywhere! it's awesome! They're never out, either. They also have hot drinks too.

Now, down this other road. No sidewalk here, so you pray you don't get run over. haha

It curves and adds a sidewalk!

Then, we cross over the train tracks.

Turn right at our Suzuki dealership

I eyeball that wrx every time I walk by here.....

Then, parking for mopeds and bikes start

Walk down another back road

Recognize him??? hahaha

That little old lady was creeping along so slow. I can't imagine how long it takes her to walk to the train.

Add money to our Passmo cards

Our train station. Kitakurihama. So small compared to the big cities. you'll see...

Cameron was charging his solar powered Iphone backup battery while we rode on the train.

This guy caught my eye for some reason...

Cameron liked this one.

This was a motorcycle class we saw from the train. It looked intense. They had some crazy cones set up on the other side of the track.

So many buildings so close to each other. It's like this everywhere!

Exiting the train station in the Tokyo area

I have no idea what these things were, but they were so cute. I think these two were sumo wrestling!

The toy station we went to first! 6 floors! it was crazy!

In Ueno park. Kinda reminds me of Central Park. It was really pretty and huge. We sat down to munch on some bars quick and people kept running up right in front of me for some reason and at this point I just realized Cameron sat us down in front of the park map! haha. He thought it would be funny. All these Japanese kept coming up and standing right in front of me or next to me. Awwwwkward!

Karp? Koi? Some crazy nuked fish.

I really wanted to go in this karaoke bar. I think this must be where Jesus would sing Karaoke. I wonder what he'd sing.....Cameron thinks "Come Together" or "Imagine". Interesting thoughts....What do you think? Maybe "Why Can't We Be Friends?"

After Ueno Park, we walked a mile or two to Asakusa (a shopping district) and I saw this adorable old mini. I love these things and they are everywhere.

After about a 2 hour escapade to find this one store in the HUGE underground mall at the Tokyo train station, we found it! We asked several people and many times we got, "ohh, mmmmm....ettttoo.....HNK?" Many people sounded like they didn't know what store we were looking for. We finally got an information lady who had a map and showed us right where it was!

Running in the train station!

I got a Domo I can have everyone sign at my birthday party.

Waiting in line for our train. The Japanese are all about lines, so they line up perfectly where each door should arrive at. So neat and polite.

 So, that was our perfect day! Our feet were TIRED, but it was so much fun. I love that we can just hop on a train and be in Tokyo in an hour. Things are getting better and better here and I fall more in love with this country the more I get to experience it. :D

We were a little more snug coming home from Tokyo. You get packed in like sardines at times. At least I can snuggle up next to my boo.