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I wish this was me talking about my (non-existent) tattoo but nope, this post is about someone else’s experience. Yesterday, Anne woke up to me sleeping on her couch downstairs because I got to her place way too early for her tattoo appointment. She’s been meaning to get a sakura (cherry blossom) branch tattooed on her shoulder for the longest time and she finally got around to setting up an appointment at Skinworkz, Ricky Sta Ana’s tattoo shop at Cartimar, last week. Despite her excitement and the random “I wanna get my tattoo tomorrow!” messages I would get from Anne over the next couple of days, we showed up two hours after her scheduled appointment yesterday. Gotta love Filipino time.

After they get over the surprise of seeing a girl with an eyebrow piercing, the second question people ask (after “Did that hurt?”) is if I have any tattoos. The answer to that is no, I do not have any tattoos because the last time I brought up that idea, my parents said something along the lines of, “We’re kicking you out of the house AND we’re not paying for your grad school tuition if you come home with black angel wings covering your entire back.” Since my income comes in random spurts these days, I’m not exactly in a financial position to get inked and deal with the consequences. So this is me living vicariously through Anne’s tattoo experience.

Most people have the impression that tattoo parlors are dark, dingy places infested with a whole assortment of diseases related to poor hygiene. It doesn’t really help that you see tattoo artists offering their services in tiny mall stalls with hardly any privacy or worse, at MRT stations for two hundred pesos. Skinworkz, however, is spotless and well-lit and their tattoo artists and piercers are very professional. They even give out sheets of aftercare instructions, which I’ve never gotten before. Besides being a tattoo/piercing place, they also carry a gorgeous collection of body jewelry made out of surgical steel, wood, and other organic materials.

Anne shows off her virginal shoulder while…

…Ricky prepares his gloves, the ink, and the tattoo gun. From what I observed of him while I was there, he’s really easy to get along with, and was more than happy to show me his collection of organic jewelry and the portfolio of his colleagues who do extreme modifications. If I had the parental approval, the design, and the money, I would have definitely asked him to do my angel wings on the spot.

The design gets transferred onto Anne’s skin using carbon paper of sorts.

The tattooing process starts. Anne reports that getting a tattoo is the second most painful experience of her life, next to childbirth. She did add a few minutes later that she got used to the stinging sensation of the needle after a while.

Meanwhile, Ricky Sta. Ana’s cute little son shows me his pet sugar glider.

Thirty minutes later, Anne’s sakura tattoo is almost finished.

Note how there are still droplets of blood on her skin!

Anne’s sakura tattoo

Anne, Ricky Sta. Ana, and me. If you take a closer look, you’ll notice that he’s got subdermal implants on his lower left arm. If you take an even closer look, you’ll also notice that my belly is protruding out of my pants. I feel like a middle-aged father.

Check out my Multiply for the high-res photos.

It took a lot of willpower for me to keep myself from getting another piercing while I was at Skinworkz. I’ve decided that perhaps a side lip ring is a little too extreme but a tiny glittering stud would definitely look cute on my nose and may even get parental approval. Just to make sure, I texted my parents and asked them if they’d still love me if I got my nose pierced; Mom said let’s talk about it, Dad said yes but he wouldn’t be happy. *shrug* Well, ya can’t please everybody! Needless to say, I left the place without any new ink or metal but I may be back at Skinworkz very soon if I can convince my mom that a tiny gem on my nose won’t make me look like some punked-out, strung-out junkie.