Samba, Not Professional Wrestling, Juggling, and more

On Sunday I woke up late since I had been in our magic bar until past 6 in the morning. When I woke up my phone had several messages for me. One of them said: "Do you want to have lunch wearing a yukata today?"

Amateur "Professional Wrestling", which becomes a weird name

Since it was already past lunch time I said that I had planned to go to the 4 Bangai Festival and see some friends perform, but that I might as well go there in yukata. My friend said that she would also go in a yukata then.

Omikoshi with a kid riding on it

When we watched one of my friends performing, there was a professional cameraman taking photos. He might have been working for the festival, or perhaps a newspaper. He took photos of the performance, but also of the audience. He had a huge camera pointing at me and my friend for a long time. Perhaps because we were in yukatas and almost no one else was. Anyway, I kept doing "ohh!" and "wow!" faces, and my friend later said she also noticed him and did the same, so he should have got a few good photos.

Hanaeda the juggler

My friend wanted to go see the body builder exhibition, so I watched some of the juggling by myself while she looked at almost naked men. She came back and said that that was great.

Juggler Yu-ki

Yu-ki falling

Yu-ki not falling

My friend also noticed that there was a "Samba dancing" point in the program, so we went over to watch that too. My friend also dances and the first time we met she was part of a dance performance at an event where I was doing a magic show.

The samba group was great. They had very colorful costumes. My friend spoke to one of them (who she knew, I think) afterwards, and they said that they would walk home dressed like this, since there was no place nearby where they could change clothes...

Photogenic?

Japanese summer outfits?

I was looking for a birthday present for a friend and came across a line of "sailor outfits" that came in light and dark blue, red, and some other colors. They seemed to be made for hotter areas than Hokkaido. My friend is male and recently tells me he is no longer as skinny as he used to be, so I think he will not fit in one of these sailor outfits. I ended up buying him something very different instead.

I wonder if I have any friends that wear or would be willing to wear such sailor outfits, though? My guess is that the answer is yes, but that all the friends I have that would be willing to wear such clothes when I am around are male...

Fantasy show

The last night in Las Vegas, my friends wanted to go see some "traditional Las Vegas style" show, meaning lots of dancing women in light clothing. We looked up what was available, and found one show that claimed to have more than 100 women working, and that even did some magical illusions. Sadly, this show was already sold out. We found another one that was not sold out, but ranked as one of the better shows and that had more than just dancing around topless.

We got some pretty good seats for the "Fantasy: the biggest tease on the Strip" (a clever title). It was more entertaining than I had expected. It had lots of girls taking off their clothes and/or dancing, and they were pretty good. It also had a singer, who was really good. There were other types of performances too, one girl did a quite impressive pole dance show, and one girl did very impressive acrobatics while dangling in curtains near the ceiling (similar to what we had seen at Cirque du Soleil earlier). There was also a very funny comedian, who also did really funny impressions of various famous people. He was great.

The singer, with a great and powerful voice

The acrobat

The pole dancer

The comedian

After the show you could buy various things in their shop. One of the things they recommended was a calendar full with photos of the girls in the show. At first, no one seemed to be about to buy anything. One of my friends said: "Of course no one buys a calendar now. It is already March!"... I am not sure he understands the point of their calendar, haha. I then went over and bought a calendar. They all signed their names on their photos, and you could take photos of your own of the girls that had been performing that night too.

Uniform

At the Rio hotel and casino, all the women working wore uniforms like this. Looked a bit cold.

Dancing half naked on the counter

We passed several bars where the staff were wearing only underwear and where they would climb the counter and stand there dancing while there were no drink orders. I guess it is a good way to get people to look your way, but since they stop dancing and get off the counter if you actually order something, I am not sure it is a great incentive to actually buy things there.

Las Vegas prostitution

There were lots of cards with phone numbers and photos of naked women spread out over Las Vegas. They were on the streets, on vending machines, in malls, and all kinds of strange places.

There were also ads for "massage" services in the entertainment catalogs (that also had magic shows etc.). Asian massages especially seemed  suspicious, haha.

Strangely dressed people in Las Vegas

I Las Vegas you find a lot of people who pose for photos with you if you give them a few dollars. They are usually dressed either like someone or something famous (i.e. Michael Jackson, Hello Kitty, characters from computer games), or dressed in very revealing costumes.

Iron Man out of costume, on a smoke break

Many Elvises

Las Vegas police

I was told I was wanted by the Las Vegas police.

Even in line in the stores you could see Elmo and other characters shopping.

Olaf

Baymax

Las Vegas police in a different uniform

Even with a fan, it looked like the risk for severe sunburn was high.

Hello Kitty, but looking a bit strange