Bon-Odori!

The Sapporo Odori Park yearly Bon-Odori ("Bon dance"; O-Bon is a Japanese holiday) started again. Two years ago I was there dancing with my two Swedish friends (that this year left Sapporo the day before the Bon Odori!) every day for the whole week this even lasts.

There is also festival style food at the Bon Odori 

Last year, I was only there on the last day since I had a very bad cold.

There was one more foreigner there, wearing a yukata

This year, I went there on the first day in my new yukata, and my new geta. One of my magician friends showed up too, and we danced for 2 hours straight. This is a traditional dance that you do in huge groups. Lots of people were taking pictures of me, since there were very few foreigners there.

I even ended up being on TV. Our secretary at work came and complained to me a few days later. She said: "When I turned on the news at 6 in the morning, there was a huge zoom up of Jonas there! The narrator explained that the Sapporo Bon Odori had started and said something like "and there were even foreigners dancing" too. I do not want that kind of shock in the morning. Why do you have to do lots of weird stuff all the time, instead of just working seriously in front of the computer!" Our secretary is funny :-) She also thinks I should spend all my free time working overtime for free, since that would be better in some sense.

My friend was also dancing. The one with a "bullseye" design on his shirt.