In Magic bar Nishioka with another magician

After the dinner, work was finished, and I got back to my hotel at around ten in the evening. This was earlier than I had expected, but later than I had hoped. I went to say hello to magician Hiro in his magic bar Red Carpet. He suggested we should do something somewhere else first, and then come back to his place (which was still pretty empty).

We first went to a hostess club where one of the girls I had met the night before was working. She was there and was happy to see us. We got to talk to lots of hostesses, who sit next to you and drink with you and laugh at your jokes if you try to be funny. Hiro did some magic for some of them and asked me to show some of them some magic too.

I was holding a transparent plastic film in my hand when this photo was taken, taken with my own camera, no less. When we checked the photo later, there was a two of diamonds there instead.

After that, I said I was thinking of visiting another magic bar to see other magicians do magic too. I said I would go to Red Carpet and meet him there again later, but he said we could go together. So we went to the magic bar Nishioka together. All the magicians there know him, of course. I have been there once before, one and half year ago, but they still remembered me. There was a new young (well, 32 years old) magician there that neither Hiro nor me had seen before. He was very nice, and he did some fun magic. We also got to see some classics of magic done by a magician who said he is 70 years old, and some magic that is just incredibly difficult to not be fooled by even if you are a magician done by a magician who taught Hiro magic when he was starting to learn magic. Very impressive.

Magic bars Nishioka and Red Carpet in Fukuoka

Hiro of Red Carpet, with a real live mouse that appeared mysteriously.

On the night I arrived in Fukuoka, I had nothing special to do, so I visited two magic bars. One is called Nishioka and is one of the bars with the longest history in Japan. It has been running for over 40 years they told me. It had a very long bar counter, and the night I was there there were three magicians performing. They all came and performed for me when I was there alone (I was early so there were no other customers there at first) and then I looked on from the side when they performed for a group of people sitting next to me later.

The son of the founder of Nishioka told me that he was not ready and had not put on his photo smile when I took this photo, he wanted me to say "1, 2, 3..."

This is the photo when he was ready... not a huge difference.

They were all very nice and funny. They were good, of course. They did many of the old classics of magic, which is a good choice I think. For the group sitting next to me, at least two of the magicians did a watch steal, and since only one girl in the group was wearing a watch, she had her watch taken several times without noticing anything. The second time that I saw, she said: "Oh no, not again!?" when the magician produced her watch from some strange place.

I also went to the magic bar Red Carpet, which is just 1 minutes walk from Nishioka. The owner of Red Carpet is a friend of the owner of our magic bar in Sapporo, and I had met him before when he was visiting Sapporo. There was only one other guest there when I arrived, and he also did magic apparently. Hiro, the master of Red Carpet, did a full magic show for the two of us anyway, which was very kind of him. I went back the next day too, since Hiro said we should go out and have something to eat together after he finished in the magic bar. The next night the place was full, and I watched the show from behind a line of other guests. He did a lot of funny and impressive magic tricks.