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.

Yukata night in One Star Bar

I have too many yukatas now, so any excuse to wear one is good. A bar where a friend works had an event called "yukata night", so I decided to attend. I first met a guy I used to meet quite often before he moved to the other side of Hokkaido. He was not wearing a yukata, but he asked me to do some magic for his friends and even came to our magic bar later that week with his girlfriend.

After having struggled through some magic (doing magic is not that great in a yukata), I ended up sitting at the counter. A Japanese man in a yukata came and sat next to me. Everyone working in the bar wore a yukata of course, and most women there also wore yukatas, but not so many of the men did. Anyway, this guy did. We looked at each other for a while and decided that we had probably met before. It turned out to be at a bondage club. He works there, and I was there doing research for magic tricks to do at the bondage event I performed at three years ago.

To celebrate the yukata night, I ended up buying yet another obi for my yukatas. I also got some free water melon. A good day.

Valentine Party at One Star Bar

Chocolate fondue with tomatoes and bread...

Yesterday there was a party for "lonely people" (on account of it being Valentine's Day soon) in a place called One Star Bar, where one of my friends works. I was asked to do a magic show there, and there were other performances too. There was also some light food, and unlimited alcohol from 18:30 to 23:30, the common way to have parties in Japan.

There was a set of amateur karaoke, where different people came on stage and sang songs of their own choosing. There was no karaoke machine with music and lyrics, instead there were two guys playing guitars (and you had to remember the lyrics yourself). The quality of the singers was very high!

Later, three women forming the group Amuse entertained us with different types of songs for half an hour or so. They were great. They played piano and flute, and sang. They covered a wide range of music, with musical pieces from the Phantom of the opera and Les Miserables, anime and computer game songs, pop songs, and much more.

I did about 30 minutes of magic on the stage. It went over very well. My friend helped by giving me a very nice introduction where he explained that I "had come all the way from Sweden just for this event" and things like that. It helped set the mood to "not too serious", so my funny tricks were properly appreciated. Afterwards I was also asked to visit some of the tables and do some more magic for people who said they wanted to see some more.

Since it was a Valentine's party everyone also got some chocolate. So my Valentine's chocolate count for 2015 is through the roof compared to previous years, and it is not even Valentine's Day yet!

Japanese Christmas is crazy and weird

Japanese traditional Christmas. Probably.

In Japan, Christmas is not celebrated that much since there are almost no Christians here (half a percent of the population or so). It is considered a great chance to do something fun, so it is celebrated in the way people believe Westerners celebrate Christmas. This belief is mainly based on what people have seen in Hollywood movies.

Christmas food

One common way to celebrate Christmas is to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken. In fact, KFC is so strongly connected with Christmas that you cannot eat at KFC on Christmas without booking in advance. And there are huge lines outside KFC with people who have booked.

Christmas present

An acceptable alternative to KFC is fried chicken in general, or roasted chicken. I had some roasted chicken last night, and it was good. My theory is that the thinking is Western world = U.S.A. American Christmas = turkey, turkey is a bird, chicken is also a bird, chicken = Christmas food.

My friend was dressed as "Christmas Marilyn Monroe". He had also bought an underwear set to wear underneath, but discovered that it was completely see through and decided to wear normal underwear instead. At least in the beginning.

Christmas is also celebrated as a "date night" in Japan. If you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband, you should go on a date on Christmas Eve. In general, you should eat expensive Western food, mainly French or Italian food. This means it is impossible to get a table at any good French or Italian restaurant on the 24th; they are all fully booked well in advance.

Another guy, trying to hide his beard. Very ungirly shoes, though.

Marilyn Monroe had managed to find high heels almost large enough for men to wear.

Since this is a night for couples, people who are not part of a couple feel left out. Some places hold special "Christmas party for lonely people", and I went to one last year. I went to one this year too. My friend who works there was very sure that he would not be lonely anymore this year, so they would not be having such a party again, but as things turned out he is still very lonely.
When I showed up, it turned out that every other man in the place was dressed in women's clothing. I am not sure that this is a Japanese Christmas tradition, but then again I am not sure it is not. Lots of men did that last year too.

Some weird Japanese thing going on outside the bar.

Underwear inspection

Another thing that was a bit weird with this party for lonely people was that while there were a bunch of people like me drinking alone at the counter, all the girls that showed up showed up with their boyfriends... So they had obviously missed the theme of this party.

Marilyn Monroe posing outside another bar (and people passing by said: "Ah, so this is a gay bar!")

Yet another Japanese man dressed for Christmas

More people showed up later during the evening, and more people showed up wearing dresses (all men). Later, my friend who had decided not to wear the skimpy underwear on account of it being completely see through (and his dress to short not to wear non-see-through underwear) decided to wear the skimpy things anyway. And to go out and pose in front of unrelated bars looking like that. Japanese Christmas is weird, but pretty entertaining.

"Normal" underwear worn under the see through underwear.

Deep fried crackers

Japanese food is said to be healthy, but sometimes I wonder... Last night I was served deep fried crackers.

Marmite and chance meetings at One Star Bar

After the El Mango party I stopped by a bar where one of my friends works. He asked me if I was hungry, which I was not (the El Mango party had lots of very good food). He was insistent, though. It turned out that he had some guydon (rice with thin slices of beef) from Yoshinoya (famous for having extremely cheap guydon) that he had started eating but could not finish, so he wanted to get rid of the leftovers.

Me, two years ago

One of the other guys working there decided to try some marmite that I had brought from Oxford. They had tried it before and decided that it tastes horrible. He tried it with the guydon, to see if that would be good. It was horrible.

Guydon, lots and lots of rice, and trace amount of beef

Later, a woman came to the bar and mentioned that she had probably met me before. She showed me a photo she had in her phone of someone with a bloody face and a zipper glued to the face. It was me, of course. We had apparently met two years ago in a different bar.

Marmite, does not go well with guydon (or anything else, really)

Doughnuts and dancing

After eating soup curry without soup, me and my Swedish friends went to a bar where a Japanese friend of mine works. He once secretly learned Swedish to surprise me by speaking Swedish to my parents, so he spoke a little bit of Swedish to my friends too.

He also thinks it is funny that among all the foreigners he has met in his life, more than half are from Sweden. He has met more than 10 Swedes.

The bar he works in has recently relocated to a new building. This building has a Mr Doughnuts shop on the first floor, so they get drunk people showing up in the bar with large bags of doughnuts that they figured would be a great deal to buy. This happened when we were there too, so we were given a lot of doughnuts for free.

People also bought us drinks, since we were foreigners and I had once dressed up as a zombie.

A large group of people who were in their forties showed up and asked for old disco songs to be played. They guy who owns this bar used to DJ a lot in a club when he was younger, so they have a DJ booth in the bar too. He started playing Boney M, Bee Gees, ABBA, and more. The drunker members of the group started dancing, and when ABBA was played, the asked "team Sweden" to join in. My friends like to dance, so they did. I suck at dancing, so not wanting to ruin the mood for everyone else, I did not.

Ramen from all over the world

My friend is using an ancient cell phone, so it requires a lot of concentration when taking photos.

In Japan, you have to give presents to everyone you know or work with after every trip you ever go on. Usually you give them small cakes. One of my Japanese friends hates sweets, so he has asked me to bring cup noodles from different countries instead. I have not had time to meet him much recently, but last week I had an evening with nothing planned, so I went to the bar where my friend works and gave him noodles from my trip to Oxford and from my trip to Sweden.

This thing that I was served was great. A cracker with something that tasted of crab.

He tried the "Kabuto" brand from Oxford first. Kabuto is a Japanese samurai helmet, but the noodles were "beef flavored pho", which implies Vietnamese noodles. Everyone that tried them agreed that the soup part was not bad, but the noodles were bad.

There was also curry noodles from Britain, and two types of soba noodles from Sweden. One was "classic yakisoba", and the other was chili flavored soba. My friend has not mentioned trying any of the others yet, but then again I have not had time to meet him so we have not talked.

Tiny and not tiny whiskey

I also mentioned that I had bought a bunch of tiny bottles of alcohol, and he said he wants to collect lots of those too to make a tiny bar for decoration.

Drunk men giving me flowers

The bar where one of my friends works was closed for a month because they moved to a new location. I went there on the opening night in the new places, and ran into a man I have met before in this bar. He gave me a rose, for no particular reason.

I also met a girl who had also been to a coupling party (speed dating). I asked if it had been fun, but she said there were no interesting men there at all. Not even one. The party I went to had lots of interesting people (also among the men, according to the girl I know who also was there).

I was also told by a Japanese friend that this photo makes me look like a complete narcissist. Having a flower in you pocket makes you a narcissist, having a jacket with any form of decoration or pattern makes you a narcissist, and having a t-shirt with a photo of yourself makes you a narcissist. I can see the point of the last part, but the first two? A narcissist?

Strange coincidences again

Yesterday my phone showed me an icon I have only seen once before, which signifies someone is chatting or sending messages to you using Google+. The message was in Swedish and roughly read: "I know [person I also know, from university, but have not met since 2006]. I too am in Sapporo, until the end of August. Do you want to meet?" I was from some Swedish guy who knows a guy I know.

I am busy in August, so the first available night seemed to be August 12, which is pretty far off. I also asked where in Sapporo he was staying, which turned out to be right where I live! So I said that then we could meet up immediately, to which he agreed.

So we met up went to a bar where one of my Japanese friends works, and my Japanese friend remembered enough Swedish to say: "Nice to meet you. My name is [name]. How do you do?" and to say: "Here you go" every time he served something. He secretly learned Swedish to surprise me and my parents when we visited 4 years ago.

So we sat there and talked for awhile about various things, like why are you in Sapporo (and not Tokyo or Kyoto), and things like that. My Japanese friend now has one more Swedish person in his list of foreigners he has talked to. That list contains almost only Swedes, and it contains almost around 10 Swedes.

My friend once again proved to be good at "giving other people leftovers of things he has started to eat but did not want to finish". He gave me and my brother some leftover convenience store sushi when my brother visited Sapporo, he gave me half of a piece of cake that the customer sitting next to me had given him to try, etc. Yesterday he gave my new Swedish acquaintance one third of an umaibo. He also served us some red wine that another customer had brought with him since he had to buy a whole bottle at the restaurant where he was eating, but could not finish it by himself.

A girl who also goes to this bar a lot also showed up and she gave us some very sour candy to try. She also asked us about Sweden, and my friend the bartender told her that all Swedish people are either crazy or at least lack taste buds. He believes this after meeting several people from Sweden who all like the taste of licorice. To Japanese people, this is pretty much the most disgusting taste they can imagine, it seems.

When we walked home, we were of course going more or less the same direction. I asked where more specifically he is staying, and it turns out he is staying in the same house as one of my magician colleagues! This was quite surprising. Last year he had stayed in the same house, on the 24th floor, he said. This year, they had put him on the 3rd floor, though. Which is the same floor my magician colleague lives on!

I messaged my magician colleague that if he sees a foreigner in the elevator, he should say hello and give him my best regards. He said he would use the only Swedish he knows: "Jag älskar dig". Which means "I love you", and is not really used as a greeting when you run into people you do not know... So I am hoping they will meet in the elevator in the near future.

More yukata photos

Yesterday it was very rainy here. There was a big typhoon down south (that never came up to Sapporo) which usually means lots and lots of rain. I got soaked completely through when biking home from work, and the rest of my summer clothes were wet from washing clothes in preparation for going to Paris on Monday (I will be presenting some things at a conference there next week).

After a "sword" fight

I did not have any dry shorts to wear but was hungry. Going out naked would probably mean getting arrested, and even if not, I would be unlikely to get service at any restaurant. Since yukatas are summer clothes and any excuse to wear one is good, I changed out of my wet clothes into a yukata and grabbed an umbrella on my way out.

Using an umbrella indoors... crazy foreigners.

I ended up in a place were the owner of a magic shop in Sapporo also was sitting alone. He is pretty funny. When we were leaving, people wanted to take photos of us together for some reason, and we were even forced to have a "sword fight" with our umbrellas, a movie of which was later put on Facebook.

I also dropped by a bar where another one of my friends works. They told me that earlier that night a girl I have met a few times there had seen photos of me wearing a yukata on Facebook, and she had commented: "Ah, I should also have worn a yukata today!" They had asked her what the point/connection would be, and she said: "Then we could have met and worn yukatas together." The other people commented that maybe this sort of thing would best be handled by for instance sending an e-mail saying something like "let's wear yukatas today and meet at [someplace]"...

In a place that - surprise, surprise - is called One Star Bar

Since she left 15 minutes or so before I showed up, we decided to put up one more photo on Facebook of me in a yukata where it was very clear that I was were she had just been.