Zombie doing magic at Ropossa

Zombie Jonas drinking tomato juice.

Yesterday I visited the magic "snack" Ropossa (the mama does magic) dressed in my Halloween zombie style. They took lots of pictures of me doing strange things, and also requested that I do a magic trick with hammering a nail into my nose. Lots of fun.

Zombie Jonas: "So I am going to do a card trick with these here cute playing cards for kids" 

"OK, I am going to hammer this nail into my nose to help with this card trick..."

Zombie with a nail in the nose.

Nail in nose, from the front.

Nail in nose, from below.

Pulling a nail out of my nose again.

Zombie talking to the customers at the counter.

Zombie making drinks.

Zombie Jonas stabbing and biting a young customer.

Zombie Jonas stabbing and biting another customer.

Zombie Jonas stabbing and biting the Mama of Ropossa.

Halloween party as a zombie

Zombie Jonas eating mochi.

Yesterday I finally found a Halloween party that I had time to go to. It was a lot of fun. I added a zipper to my wrist, and bought a pair of white trousers for 63 yen (~63 cent) but other than that the look was pretty much the same as on Saturday.

Dressing up as a zombie

One of the new details I tried, a zipper glued to my skin.

First I had to dress up as a zombie before going out. I am getting used to that by now but it still takes almost two hours.

This way of making a bandaged bloody wound also looked pretty realistic.

Last new detail was a pair of white trousers, so blood that ran off the shirt would still be visible.

The state of the zombie face before leaving home.

The state of the zombie face when coming back home. A lot of paint and blood have dried up or fallen off.

The Halloween party

Other people at the Halloween party.

Once at the Halloween party, there was free food and lots of other funny people. I liked the girl dressed as the Onepiece (a manga) character Boa Hancock. Very high level. There was also a girl dressed in a high school uniform, who said she used her own original uniform from when she was still in high school. There was also a group of girls all dressed up as a team, which was nice. 

I also liked the guy in the skeleton dress, who when he took off his Scream style mask had another mask underneath! Finally, there was also a guy dressed up like an accident victim, covered in blood, that I liked.

Dressing up in teams would be cool (if only I had friends!)

This guy has something stuck in his forehead, and a lot of blood everywhere. Nice!

Dinner at an Italian restaurant

Zombie having gnocchi for dinner.

After awhile, I got hungry so I left the party and had dinner at an Italian restaurant I sometimes go to. The staff thought it was very funny that I showed up like a zombie and kept following me around in the corridors when I went to the bathroom etc. in the hopes of running into random strangers and seeing their reactions. We ran into the mama of the bar next door, and she was surprised. She called out all the guests and waitresses of her place to take a look at me.

 Ropossa

Me taking a zombie self shot at magic snack Ropossa.

Last year when I dressed up for the Sapporo Zombie Walk and then went to visit a magic shop, the mama of the magic "snack" Ropossa was upset. She wanted me to come to her place too, not only that of our common friend. So I figured I had to visit her place this year. It was a lot of fun. They took lots of pictures of me that I will hopefully get my hands on later.

When they turned down the light and lit me from below, things looked even creepier, haha.

Birthday presents!

Black and white photos from the "safe" angle.

Black and white photos from the creepy angle.

Yesterday was not my birthday, but one of my friends said he had a late birthday present for me so we met up downtown. It was a great present! He gave me two large photos (A3 size or so) that change slightly depending on the angle you see them from. I will put these next to my bed, or maybe on the toilet door. Rather creepy from some angles, haha.

A collection of magic props and comedy props.

Later, we also visited the magic "snack" Ropossa. It is a small bar kind of place where the "mama" does magic too. She was very happy about me showing up dressed as a zombie this year (she complained last year that I never went to her place when I was dressed as a zombie but went to a place of someone she knows instead). She gave me a whole sack of presents!

 A card from my mother arrived 12 hours late, but looked nice.

 My mother sent me a card from Sweden which also arrived yesterday.

A woman I met in a bar gave me a haskapp jewelry (a cookie) when she heard it was my birthday.

Not so exciting birthday (but still pretty nice)

Yesterday was my birthday. It seems to be the busiest day of the year for everyone I know in Japan. I tried to find someone to go have dinner with me, or do anything fun at all, but in the end I was all alone this year too. My friends were: working (many), had to get up early today (for work, or interviews for work), had dinner with their girlfriend instead, were sick, went to a birthday party (not mine), did not feel like going out, were out of town, or just in general did not have time.

I also had to work, of course. I was thinking of taking a day off, but my professor decided it was very important to have a meeting very early in the morning on this Monday so I had to get up obscenely early and work instead. In the end, our professor did not actually show up at the scheduled time (he overslept or something), so we spent 15 minutes or so just sitting around waiting. And wishing we could have slept longer instead, haha. He showed up later and we had a meeting that did not turn out the way I had hoped.

Ma- Bo- Don

The meeting finished around lunch time, and I went to the student cafeteria and had lunch there. This week they have a "autumn vegetable ma-bo-don" special dish, which I tried. It was nice.

I worked some more but got tired and went home without doing more than around 30 minutes of unpaid overtime.

A zipper glued to my arm

On my way home, the last people to reply to "do you have time to celebrate my birthday today?" came in with their "no"s, so I did not really have much to do. I bought some theater glue on my way home and glued stuff to my arm in preparation for a Halloween party I want to go to. It was quite fun, though the glue hurts more than I expected.

Avocado and cheese hamburger

Around 9, I got hungry so I walked to the hamburger shop named "Tack" (which happens to mean "thank you" in Swedish, but that is just a coincidence) which is a 10 minutes walk from where I live. I had a nice hamburger and a glass of water there. A young girl showed up and talked about Aerosmith music videos with me for awhile. She was pretty funny. She also asked to see a magic trick, so I did two tricks for her and gave her the business card of our magic bar. She said she often goes to another place in the same building.

A "shot glass" from Chicago, with Four Roses Black whiskey in it.

I then decided to try to find someone I know to talk to and the best bet is usually to go to a place where one of my friends work (since they have to be at work). I went to a bar where a friend of mine works as a bartender. He was pretty busy with other customers, so we did not get to talk very much. He did however give me a shot of whiskey for free from a bottle he received as a birthday present that week (his birthday is exactly one week before mine). I do not like alcohol, but this was the best whiskey I have ever tried. I would still not actually drink it if there was for instance water or something tasty available, but it was the best whiskey at least, haha.

There was a girl in the bar who came up to me and said that she wants to have a baby. More specifically she wants to have a half Japanese (she is Japanese) and half Caucasian baby, since she works in a maternity ward and all the babies born to mixed couples there are super cute. So she explained that she wants this half Japanese half Caucasian baby, and noticed that I am Caucasian, ..., and thus I should now other Caucasians so maybe I could introduce some nice man to her? Her thinking makes sense, I guess, but the implied "I am totally uninterested in you, of course" nuance of her Japanese could maybe be considered slightly impolite? Interesting country... Well, she did say "happy birthday" to me, so she was polite in general.

Then I left and my birthday was over. Not exactly the most exciting birthday I ever had, but more or less what my birthdays usually are like. Total count of presents received during birthday: 0.

I got one plastic egg toy three weeks ago, and a handkerchief two weeks ago, though. And my parents said they sent a card that might arrive during this week.

More Halloween experiments

Today it is my birthday. It seems it is also the busiest day of the year of everyone I know. They have to work late, they have to get up early tomorrow, they have to go to their sister-in-law's birthday party, etc. So I am left all alone on my birthday (as most years). On the positive side, this gives me plenty of time to try out new Halloween related things.

Yesterday I tried to paint myself with glow-in-the-dark paint, but it did not glow very much unless you stood in strong light for a long time. Today I bought some makeup glue and tried gluing a zipper to my wrist. It looks kind of interesting, and it seems to stick well enough to not fall off. It does loosen up quite a lot when you move your hand (which of course you do quite a lot...) so sticking it to some other body part is probably better.

Other peoples photos of me as a zombie

A guy who used to be a bartender in a bar where I often have dinner.

I found three photos of me on the Internet. So I boldly stole them and put them here too :-)

A girl, in the same bar.

Me in our magic bar, working.

Being insulted with a birthday cake

Tomorrow is my birthday, but since I do not work in the magic bar on Mondays, my magician colleagues produced a birthday cake for me yesterday (or right after midnight, so technically today). My magician colleagues give me a cake every year, and I am very happy about that. The cake this year was very good too.

This year, the name on the cake said "ヨーナシ" instead of "ヨーナス" (the way I usually write my name in Japanese). Both are somewhat reasonable ways of writing Jonas in Japanese, though the latter one is the most natural. Also, the first way is the Japanese word for "useless" (用無し, though it could also be a European pear, 洋梨). Even the people in the cake shop were skeptical when my colleague wanted a cake that said "Happy birthday, useless person!"... But he managed to convince them that was what he wanted.

Still, a good cake is a good cake, even if the sign on it is insulting, haha.

Halloween zombie magician project (including a home made zombie dove!)

This year there were a lot of Halloween parties on the 27th. This was a Saturday, so I was schedule to work in our magic bar and could not go to any parties.

Me in my home made shirt, wearing my self applied zombie make up, and biting my home made zombie dove. 

One of my friends just came back from a long stay in Canada and had fun memories of Halloween. She wanted to go to some Halloween party on the 27th (and did) and we had plans to meet up after midnight when I might have time to leave the magic bar (we are usually very busy until midnight, and then not busy so I might have a chance to leave early). In the end, she went home before midnight (she had an interview for a new job early on Sunday morning).

Also, we ended up being busier than expected, and I was doing magic until 4:30. So I scrapped my plans of going to one of the bigger parties alone too.

Me after 9 hours of working. The paint is cracking up, the blood has dried up and become strange in places. Still looks fairly OK, though.

I did however dress up as a zombie magician and worked dressed like that, just in case I would have had a chance to leave early and party. A lot of our guests thought that was funny. I even carved a dove out of sponge material and made a zombie dove to go with my outfit.

Step by step of making a zombie dove:

Making of a zombie dove, step 1.

Dove, step 2.

Dove step 3, only thing left is to add blood (by holding it with my blood smeared hands)

On my way to work I went to have dinner at a friends restaurant, and the woman sitting next to me at the counter was a bit freaked out when I sat down. I also ran into a friend in the convenience store on my way to work. He though I looked a bit weird too (but then again, he has a huge blond (bleached) hairdo that stands out among the other Japanese people, so he looks weird too).

Me and my only dinner companion. A rather lonely dinner, with my zombie dove.

I did meet my other friend right before she went to her Halloween party (right before I went to work) just to say hello. While we were talking, some tourists from Taiwan came up and wanted to take a picture of me. My friend also took a picture. Then some other girl stopped and stared at me. It turned out to be one of our regular customers from the magic bar, but she did not recognize me until I started speaking. Then she too wanted to take a picture of me. When she did that, some high school girls also wanted to take a picture, some random guy came up and took a picture with me, and an older man did the same too... Very popular.

Step by step Jonas to zombie transformation:

Step 1, paint white. This year I also wanted to make the skin cut up in to puzzle pieces so I drew some black lines.

Step 2, paint eyes black, add blood on top of the black lines.

Step 3, Adding blood to the shirt by sipping blood in my mouth and then letting it run out of the mouth and drip down. When adding blood like tears, I got blood in my eye which hurt a lot (I make the blood out of syrup, and putting the very sticky syrup in your eye is not pleasant).

During the night, people I ran into around the toilet out side our magic bar also took pictures of me. As did my boss in the magic bar. Lots of fun.

Step by step make up degradation study:

In the toilet after a few hours of working. The shirt looks better, the face is starting to degrade.

In the toilet after a few more hours. The blood on the face is now mostly dried up.

Face after coming home from 9 hours of working. A lot of the paint on the neck is gone. The blood on the neck is weird but still kind of cool. Small parts of the blood on the face still look liquid. Face paint is cracking up, which looks kind of good in general.

On my way home from work I ran into a girl I know who recognized me in makeup. She had been to a Halloween party that she said was great.