Eccentric clothing

People tell me I dress strangely, but compared to this ordinary looking Japanese man I think I do not stick out that much, right?

Getting home and feeling tired

After all the magic shows and photos, I finally got home and tried to get my makeup off. I had to fly to Tokyo early in the morning (like really early, taking the train at 6 in the morning early), and could not look like a zombie at that time.

While a lot of the paint and glued on stuff starts to peel off before you want it to, some of the stuff sticks like crazy and applying water, soap, glue solving magic stuff, scraping with tools, etc. does not always help.

This time I had quite a lot of stuff stuck to my face after a lot of work. I decided to get two hours of sleep and continue in the morning. Then I got almost all of the grey stuff off. But later I noticed I had some paint stuck in my ears and at other locations that are hard for myself to see.

What is weird with this photo?

While having a drink at a bar where one of my friends work to rest up after my magic show, a guy I know a little and who sometimes uses my Facebook updates of where I am and seem to be having a good time as recommendations of places to visit (on other days, when I am not there) showed up and ended up in the seat next to me. He wanted to take a photo together with me. My friend the bartender suggested he should take a photo without making any Halloween style poses, just looking normal. And to use this photo on Facebook with no comment as to there being a zombie beside him, just posting it with something like "Drinking in One Star Bar again.".

Looking "normal"

Other people in the bar also wanted to take photos, but they wanted to take photos being bitten by a zombie or things like that.

My Halloween stalker

There is a girl who I first met because she often comes to our magic bar. Now, her friend is also married to one of my friends. I keep running into her when I am dressed as a zombie or something similar. And in weird places, not in our magic bar or some place like that.

Once, I was meeting another friend for Halloween and she was going to a party and I had to go work in our magic bar, so we just met to say hello and see the other's costume choice. When talking there, random people kept coming up to me and asking if they could take a photo of or with me. So when I was talking to some random office worker outside KFC, this Halloween stalker of mine also showed up. I have also met her in the corridor outside a karaoke place. I have met her outside the shared toilet in a building with 93 bars. I have met her in the Sapporo Art Forest park (although at that time I was there for the Star Wars exhibit and was not actually dressed weirdly, only wearing Star Wars clothes). I have also met her in our magic bar when working dressed as a zombie, but that is not surprising.

This time, I was packing up my stuff after my magic show and was about to leave the bar I had performed in when I noticed my Halloween stalker sitting at a table not far from the exit. She seemed surprised to see me.

Magic show at the H's Cafe Halloween party

H's Cafe (read "his cafe") is a bar in Sapporo that among other things serves great hamburgers. Possibly the best burgers in Sapporo. They also have Halloween parties. Last year I was asked to do a magic show at their Halloween party, and they were apparently happy with the show and asked me back this year too.

The whole place was decorated with fake spider web and strange paintings that looked scary from some angles and not so scary from others. H's Cafe has a fairly young (early twenties? I cannot really tell with Japanese people even when they have not painted their faces for Halloween) clientele, and the Halloween party was no exception. You had unlimited drinks for the duration of the party and you could get free hamburgers and chocolate too.

There was a costume competition, and anyone in costume got a number to stick to themselves somewhere and you could vote for two or three numbers to win the costume competition. The winners got a H's Cafe free pass, which means you can eat and drink for free during November, under the condition that you are there with at least one other person (who will have to pay for their food and drinks). This year I ended up in second place in the costume competition, but I did not have time to use the free pass (the university keeps me too busy).

Scary reflection in the red bull cooler

My magic show went well this year too. People laughed at the right times and were surprised at the right times. It is always a bit difficult for me to do magic in weird costumes. No pockets where you are used to having them. People cannot understand your facial expression. Things like that. After my magic show was finished, people I know showed up by change (they had no idea I was doing a show, I had no idea they ever visited this place).

A group of vampires, and me. The girl in blue (rightmost) won the costume competition.

Three guys dressed up as "people who forgot to dress up for Halloween"

I took a photo with this guy last year too (last year he won the costume competition)

Face paint starting to peel off

Omelette flavored gummi candy

In Japan they come up with the weirdest flavors for ice cream and for candy. My convenience store now sells gummi candy with "omelette" flavor. I figured that was very unlikely to be good, but bought some just to try it out for my blog. It was not good. It does however taste very much like fried eggs, except much sweeter. After trying one piece myself, I put the rest on the table in our lab where it says "Please feel free to eat these" and people put omiyage candy. No one has touched these in the three months since I bought them...

Ridiculously difficult "egg shaped kendama"

Almost...

The last night of September, I was shown something called "egg kendama". A kendama is an old Japanese toy. It has a ball that you are supposed to land on different parts of a wooden handle. The egg shaped kendamas similarly had marbles and you were supposed to shake the thing to get the marble to stay on top of a small pedestal. When it was placed there, the egg would balance upright, when it was not there the egg would fall over.

This turned out to be very difficult. I finally managed to get the egg with only one marble balanced, but the one with two was too difficult for me to finish before they closed the bar. For some reason they gave me a piece of cloth made out of some material that was "extra good to wipe smart phone screens" with.

I came back a few days later to try to clear the two marble challenge too. I did manage to do it that day. And then they wanted to take a photo with both eggs balanced together, so I had to redo the first one too.

Cool uniforms in the escalator

In Japan, people think I dress weirdly. I see lots of people that I think dress strangely too, though. These two girls had very cool uniforms, and seemed to be out shopping.

Why did you come to Japan?

I had a change of flights at Narita airport and there I was interviewed by the TV show 「ユーは何しに日本へ？」 ("Why did you come to Japan?"). This show is very popular and they find interesting looking people in the airports and talk to them. If you are very interesting, they follow you around in Japan for a few days too.

They found my t-shirt funny and I did some magic tricks for them, but in the end they never broadcast anything with me. The second you mention that you live in Japan, they become very uninterested. Next time I run into them, I will have to pretend to be a tourist and tell them of some of all the crazy plans I have in my calendar ("experience Japanese Halloween" or something).

I did get a photo with the TV crew, though. And the interview was a quite fun way to pass the time.

Flying back to Japan

My boss stayed longer in Germany, but I had to go straight back to Sapporo as soon as the research meeting was over, or I would have to pay the plane tickets myself. This meant that I had no lounge access on the way home, but I had quite a lot of fun.

There were some girls in German outfits singing and dancing in the airport. On the airplane I taught one of the cabin attendants how to make roses out of paper napkins after she spotted me doing that because I was bored. She then gave me a big bag with all kinds of snacks and postcards as a thank you gift when I left the plane.

Okinawa omiyage

A friend of mine went to Okinawa with his wife and brought back a wallet that looks like a Japanese bill as a souvenir for me.

Japanese census

There was a census here in Japan recently. Since I live here, I was asked to fill it out. There was a very convenient Web interface that you could use.

Drinking cheese cake

Our university sells a "cheese cake drink". It is cheese cake flavored soy milk. Cake is not really a flavor that comes to mind when people ask me for something I would like to drink. I bought one and it was not that good. It is still selling strong half a year later, though, so I guess someone likes it.

Three types of cheese ice cream

In Japan they keep coming up with weird flavors for ice cream. I bought an ice cream that had cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and camenbert cheese in it. It was not good.

Police parked in front of my building

People tell me I live in a "bad neighborhood" (by Japanese standards), and I do see the police quite often. One time some police officers and an ambulance crew came out from the apartment two or three doors down from mine in the corridor carrying a stretcher with a (full) body bag. They asked if I wanted to cram into the elevator with them, but it was pretty packed already so I said I would take the stairs instead.

One time, some police officers asked me to open the (locked) entrance door and let them in when I was coming home, and then they ran very fast out of the elevator towards some apartment down the hall on a different floor than mine.

This time, there was a patrol car parked in front of the building, but nothing out of the ordinary was going on as far as I could tell.

I also get stopped by the police quite a lot, but they are always very polite and nice to deal with.

Not a good time to have to go to the airport

Our administrative office thinks that if you have nothing work related to do in Tokyo, you should leave very early to get back to Sapporo. This meant that I had to try to get to the airport in the middle of Tokyo rush hour. Despite starting at the first station of the monorail to the airport, and thus having a completely empty train to try to board, I could not get on the first train that arrived. Nor the second. I got on the third, but it was pretty uncomfortable being in train that packed.

Strange place to leave your shoes

Outside my hotel, someone had left a pair of shoes. They were still there a few hours later when I left the hotel to fly back to Sapporo.

Juggling and spicy food in Toto's bar

I had time to stop by Toto's bar (near my hotel) if I skipped sleeping before going back to Sapporo, so I did. There I saw some magic, of course, and also got to see one half of the Kikyo Brothers juggling team. He did some very impressive juggling despite the ceiling being very low. I talked to him afterwards and mentioned I had seen them perform in Sapporo, at the Daidonden street performance festival. He said he was going to perform this year too, so I will try to go and say hello to him in Sapporo too.

I was also served something that was an extremely spicy pepper fruit in miso sauce. It was very spicy indeed. Since I have grown used to spicy things after our crazy Russian roulette with spicy chicken in Sapporo, I finished my plate, which impressed the other guests in the bar.