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.

Bondage in the desert

After performing magic at a few bondage events, I now have a Facebook feed that contains large amounts of bondage photos most days. In Las Vegas there were several shops selling bondage stuff. I liked the display window above.

People I know

I passed by a sign with information about many different bars in many different buildings. It so happened that two bars from two different buildings both featured people that I know.

Rootstock 2015: bondage, giant hamburgers, magic, pole dance, comedy, and punk

Me and Nasty Cats, a pole dance duo

Yesterday I attended Rootstock 2015. This was a bondage S&M event, with lots of things going on. I was there to do magic. At the previous Rootstock event I was asked to do 30 minutes of magic on the stage, dressed as a zombie. This time I was asked to walk around and do close up magic to people when nothing else in particular was going on. Dressed as a zombie.

The comedian Dama

Sarai Ichimiya, striptease dancer and more

There were many different performances at the event. There were four different bands playing music, mainly punk. They were all very good. There was a funny comedian called Dama. There was a great pole dance team called Nasty Cats that were great. They must be much stronger than I am, despite probably not weighing even half of what I do... They did some incredibly gymnastic things.

I forgot to take a photo with the S-performer Minami Nijimura

The two guys on the left where on stage as M-performers

There was a striptease dancer called Sarai Ichimiya who did all kinds of things (dancing, acting, telling jokes, taking her clothes off, etc.) who was also really good. There were of course also bondage performances. The first one starred a girl I know from non-bondage circumstances too (she is dating a friend of one of my friends, a guy I have known since eight years ago or so). She had some men come up and stage and then tied them up, whipped then until blood came out, kicked them in the groin, bit them really hard, etc. She looked extremely happy all the time and laughed a lot, so she was very entertaining as a performer. Some of the stuff looked way more painful than what I find interesting to look at, though.

Asahi, S-performer and organizer

The M-performer Anzu

The second bondage performance was done by the organizer, the girl who invited me to these events. She tied up another girl, poured melted candle wax on her, whipped her, choked her, lifted her by the hair, etc. More of a serious drama style performance, unlike the first one which was more "let's laugh".

A photo with the pole dance girls again, because they were great

The camera woman documenting the event

I kept running into people that I know. I know pretty much nothing about bondage, but since I performed at one of these events before, lots of people I met there still remember me. They come up to me and say hello in the supermarket, for instance. This time, there were lots of non-bondage things going on too, and many people where there to see one of the bands, for instance. I waved to a guy I know because he is extremely good at doing some things with playing cards, but he just looked confused. I found him again half an hour or so later when there was some down time in the program. When I asked him if he remembered me from when he visited our magic bar, he figured out who I am. I guess the zombie look threw him off. I also met a woman who visits the bar my friend works at. She was there to help with a tattoo shop that sold things (and gave people tattoos on the spot).

After the event was over, there was a party for staff. There there was a special performance where a man put a girl in a big zip-lock plastic bag and then sucked out all the air with something that looked like a vacuum cleaner. And when the girl is about to pass out, you open bag again. I have seen the same man do precisely that at another event where one of my friends was performing.

Zip-lock bag with a girl and quite a lot of air in it.

Zip-lock bag with a girl and no air in it.

Apart from all the performances, there were also people selling things. Food, clothes, toys, sex toys, tattoos, fashion accessories, and more.

Guy selling cyber fashion accessories

Cyber fashion accessories

I bought some food. Two people I know where there selling hamburgers, so I bought one from them. It was excellent. I also bought some meat loaf from another woman. It was great. She gave me some more food for free too. Which was also good.

People selling hamburgers

A giant hamburger (3kg of meat!)

The more normal sized hamburger I bought

Meat loaf

Spicy food

There was a giant hamburger up for sale too. It had 3 kg of meat inside, and the bread had been made to special order from a bakery. It looked way too big for any one person to finish. In the end, no one felt up to the challenge, so at the party after everything was over, it was given to a woman who happened to have her birthday that day. It was of course too big for her too, so it was cut up and shared between many people. I got one (huge) slice, and the hamburger was great!

A very large hamburger used as a birthday cake

Two guys trying to eat their way through the giant hamburger (and failing)

My piece of the hamburger

People also came up to me and gave me things. One woman gave me chocolate because I did some magic for her. Another woman, who I know a little since she is friends with one of the magicians in our magic bar asked me if I can drink alcohol. I said yes. Then she said: "Then I am giving you this drink. I ordered a gin and tonic and it was tastes much worse than I imagined". I am not sure that was a gift to be happy about, but still. A gift is a gift, I guess. The drink tasted more like Moscow mule than gin and tonic, so I guess they made her the wrong drink (and that was why she was unhappy with the taste). There was also a guy who gave me a home made sweet potato dessert that he had made himself.

Chocolate

A glass that never contained gin and tonic

Sweet potato dessert

Apart from people performing, selling, cooking, etc. there were also people there just to watch and have fun. Many of them wanted to take photos together with me. Many of them looked weird, so I also took photos with some of them.

This woman had interesting clothes, but chose a pose that shows almost nothing of that

I liked the girl in the high school uniform and black mask best, and they liked my pull out sign best.

These girls took around 10 photos of me

I have met the guy in the paper bag before (he wore a paper bag at that time too)

Another white faced person. With great contact lenses.

This guy had the strangest clothes of all, and he was just a spectator.

Apparently the person that brought the red apples was not connected to the Snow White, nor to the witch. And those two didn't know each other either. Nice combo set, though.

Zombie makeup again

Early stages

I was asked to do some magic at a bondage event again. Last time, they asked me to show up as a zombie. This time they had no special requests, but I figured I should show up in some form of special costume since most people at these events do. Since I did not have that much time, I just went with a simple zombie look (I have lots of fake blood that I have made for previous occasions stuffed in my refrigerator, so most of the preparations are already done).

Right before leaving for work

I tried to make a 3D effect too

This time I tried painting the face gray first and then adding white on top of that instead of just using white, to see what that looks like. It looks kind of nice, but the blood does contrast best with pure white. And the blood is what makes people think it looks wonderful, every time I try something new.

Seven hours later, lots of paint has peeled off

Right before getting into the shower to wash the paint away

Shopping at 7-eleven on the way home

Sapporo Fetish Festival 3

Some of the performers

One of my friends told me a few months back that she would be on stage at the "Sapporo Fetish Festival" this year, and said that I should come and see the shows. So yesterday I went to see her.

Me and my friend

I know basically nothing of bondage, S&M, or the fetish scene. But since I did a magic show at another bondage event last year, I do know some people in that world and I met two (unrelated) persons that I knew from before there by chance.

Some of the S type performers

My friend was on stage and got tied up and whipped. Most of the performances were like that, but when my friend was performing the performance was done to live music. There was a woman playing shamisen and a man playing biwa, and they were great! The other performances used music, but not live music.

The presenter, who was pretty much talking non-stop for five hours, and who had a cool jacket

My friend was in a performance of the more stylistic and beautiful type. The event where I performed (magic), the S&M performances were more like pantomime, telling a story without words. At this Fetish Festival, there were also more extreme performances, like putting a woman in a huge zip-lock bag and using a vacuum cleaner type thing to suck out all the air, or pumping huge amounts of water into someones left nostril (having it gush out of the right nostril and the mouth).

This woman at first did not remember talking to me for an hour

I also spoke a little to a performer who also performed at the event where I did my magic show. At that time, we spoke for an hour or so at the after party. This time, she did not recognize me. This is quite rare for me here in Japan, since a blond person who speaks Japanese well (not that I think I am that great at Japanese, but to Japanese people I have a very impressive flow when I speak) is apparently rare, so people tend to remember me. But then again, at that time I was dressed up as a zombie and yesterday I was without make-up. When saying: "Last time we met, I was a zombie", she did remember.