Getting home and feeling tired

After all the magic shows and photos, I finally got home and tried to get my makeup off. I had to fly to Tokyo early in the morning (like really early, taking the train at 6 in the morning early), and could not look like a zombie at that time.

While a lot of the paint and glued on stuff starts to peel off before you want it to, some of the stuff sticks like crazy and applying water, soap, glue solving magic stuff, scraping with tools, etc. does not always help.

This time I had quite a lot of stuff stuck to my face after a lot of work. I decided to get two hours of sleep and continue in the morning. Then I got almost all of the grey stuff off. But later I noticed I had some paint stuck in my ears and at other locations that are hard for myself to see.

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.

Magic show at the H's Cafe Halloween party

H's Cafe (read "his cafe") is a bar in Sapporo that among other things serves great hamburgers. Possibly the best burgers in Sapporo. They also have Halloween parties. Last year I was asked to do a magic show at their Halloween party, and they were apparently happy with the show and asked me back this year too.

The whole place was decorated with fake spider web and strange paintings that looked scary from some angles and not so scary from others. H's Cafe has a fairly young (early twenties? I cannot really tell with Japanese people even when they have not painted their faces for Halloween) clientele, and the Halloween party was no exception. You had unlimited drinks for the duration of the party and you could get free hamburgers and chocolate too.

There was a costume competition, and anyone in costume got a number to stick to themselves somewhere and you could vote for two or three numbers to win the costume competition. The winners got a H's Cafe free pass, which means you can eat and drink for free during November, under the condition that you are there with at least one other person (who will have to pay for their food and drinks). This year I ended up in second place in the costume competition, but I did not have time to use the free pass (the university keeps me too busy).

Scary reflection in the red bull cooler

My magic show went well this year too. People laughed at the right times and were surprised at the right times. It is always a bit difficult for me to do magic in weird costumes. No pockets where you are used to having them. People cannot understand your facial expression. Things like that. After my magic show was finished, people I know showed up by change (they had no idea I was doing a show, I had no idea they ever visited this place).

A group of vampires, and me. The girl in blue (rightmost) won the costume competition.

Three guys dressed up as "people who forgot to dress up for Halloween"

I took a photo with this guy last year too (last year he won the costume competition)

Face paint starting to peel off

Dressing up

Back in Sapporo, I was asked to do a magic show at a Halloween party one week before Halloween. I had bought a t-shirt in Sweden that has a skin color print that makes you look like a girl, and I used this and a wig I bought but never used for my slit-mouthed-woman costume back in August.

I also added some torn pieces of skin that you could peel back. I had to get up really really early the next morning and fly to Tokyo, so I did not want to have a costume that would take too much time to get out of after the party was finished (sometime after midnight)

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.