Lamborghini

When walking from a restaurant to our magic bar, I passed a line of expensive muscle cars waiting at a red light. There were two Lamborghinis, a few Ferraris, and a Porsche. I took out my camera to take a photo, and noticed that the car right in front of me was driven by one of my friends, one of the guys I went to Las Vegas with back in March. He once took me for a ride in his Ferrari, but apparently now he also owns a Lamborghini.

Inconvenient meeting

We, in a car, met another car in this road where they only carved out one lane during the winter. Luckily for us, the guy in the other car started backing up, and ended up going backwards for a kilometer or so until there was space enough for us to pass. Very kind of him.

Sparkly car

 I passed a car that can be described as sparkly when walking around in Osaka.

Someone really likes Hatsune Miku

I saw (what looked like) a private car which was fully decorated with Hatsune Miku.

Out drinking with my brother

Cars completely unrelated to my brother's work

My brother and his wife wanted to join me when I went to Magic Bar Stockholm to see the weekend show there. We stopped by a pub on the way, and I was surprised by the staff there not understanding me when I tried speaking Swedish (most people in Sweden do understand Swedish). The problem was not that my Swedish is bad from living abroad, but that this was an English pub and the people working there were British. Since everyone in Sweden (pretty much) speaks English, it is probably difficult for them to learn Swedish (everyone switches to English so you get no practice).

British pub

The drinks were nice, as was the interior and the staff. We walked from there to the magic bar, and on the way we passed two things that my brother pointed out. One is the office where he works now. On the ground floor there were lots of luxury cars, but that was not related to their company.

Expensive apartment

Random expensive looking car

On the other side of the street, we could also see the apartment with the highest per square meter price paid in Stockholm, I was told. It was bought by the guy who created the Minecraft game. There were lots of expensive looking cars parked around that area in general.

Swedes like eating outdoors. Despite it being something like 12 degrees Celsius, people were still sitting at tables in the street to eat and drink.

A fun evening in red

Red triangles, gifts from different friends

Yesterday I worked until very late, and decided to stop by the Italian restaurant that my friend runs, since they are open until early in the morning. I was told that a few days earlier a group of foreigners had shown up and asked (in English) if there was an English menu available. My friend who speaks almost no English became panicked and just said "nai nai" ("no", in Japanese) and gesturing the Japanese gesture for "no" (which most people who are not from Japan do not recognize, I guess). Since then, he has begun thinking that having an English version of the menu might be good, so he asked me if I could translate their menu. If I show up with an English version of their menu, he would give me a free meal, he said. Which would probably be quite much cheaper than my usual hourly pay, but since we are friends I said that of course I will do it.

He gave me a piece of water melon just for accepting the offer.

A man came in and sat next to me at the counter. We have met several times before, and he has come to our magic bar to see me too. He said: "I promised to buy you dinner when we met near your birthday, right? And I still did not do that, right?" I have no memories of him making such a promise, but it might be true (and since it must have been at least one year since he made such a promise, I may be a bit fuzzy on the details of our last conversation). I said as much, but he was quite sure he had promised that, so he paid for my dinner yesterday.

Then I went home and started translating the menu (they gave me one big plastic folder with a laminated menu to take home). Another friend suddenly called me (people very rarely call me) and asked if I was near the place she works. Since I was at home, the answer was yes. She said that a guy we both know was coming to her place in his Ferrari, so I should come over and get a ride.

I figured that for riding a Ferrari I should wear cool sunglasses, so I grabbed a pair before leaving. I walked over and arrived slightly before the Ferrari. My friend's friend also showed up in his Lamborghini. Both the Ferrari and the Lamborghini were very cool. I have never been very interested in cars, but these cars looked cool and the sound the made was also very cool.

Me, looking like a guy who owns a Ferrari

I got to ride around a few blocks in the Ferrari, and it was like riding in a roller coaster... Very powerful acceleration!

Me sitting in a Lamborghini (which was so low it was hard to get out). Also worth noticing is: 1) the police passing in the background; 2) the Engrish written on the car ("muffer that of best masterpiece is a heat magic")

When we were standing around taking photos of the cars, lots of people came up to me and said things like: "Very cool!" (in English, no less!) and "Is it OK if I take a photo?" (in Japanese, of course). I said that I believed it would be fine, but that it was not my car. Everyone seemed surprised that it was not my car... I don't even have a driver's license. I guess it is the sunglasses?

Sitting around in a Ferrari

Osaka trip: hot weather, skimpy clothes

In Sapporo we had snow fall in the mountains a few weeks back and it is fairly cold even on a good day by now. In Osaka I walked around in a t-shirt and was sweating... So it is quite a lot hotter. Apparently, it was not only me, the locals also wore very little:

Autumn in Osaka, so hot you do not need much clothes

Apparently, right below the Umeda Sky Building observation deck, there was some kind of car related event going on, so there were race queens standing there and being photographed by people with huge cameras.
 

Race queens

Some people were also taking pictures of cars. I am very uninterested in cars, so I did not really know what was picture worthy and what not, but everyone else was taking a picture of this, so I did too:

Cars

There was a booth with race queens handing out energy drinks too.

A very large lens for close up photography

More race queens

I tried the "Shark" energy drink, which has a very cool logo. The taste is not bad either, if you like energy drinks.

Shark, a green drink that tastes nothing like tea

Cold car?

My neighbor has a car that looks like this. Considering that it is about 5℃ and rainy here now, and will be ten degrees colder and full of snow soon, this car may be a little cold. I guess Japanese people are just tougher than I am.