Getting flowers from beautiful women

I rushed home early from seeing all the fun things at the Hokkaido Shrine Festival, because I had promised a friend to do a magic show at the after party of the wedding of two of his friends.

When I got there, I was told that they wanted my performance to be the last thing at the party and that I could just join the party to pass the one and a half hour or so until then. I knew a few people at the party but most people I had never met before (on account of only having met the bride and groom once). People kept asking me if I was from the bride's side or the groom's side, which was a bit awkward since I did not know either, haha.

People also kept telling me that there had been a magician doing a magic show at the previous party they had all just come from... Great. No one had told me about that, haha. But when I did my magic show, everyone laughed at the right places, and afterwards around 20 people came up to me and asked for my business card (which I don't normally hand out when performing at weddings, but am happy to hand out if people ask for them).

When I left, I got a flower from the bride because she liked the show. The next day, I ran into a woman who had also attended the party at the Shrine Festival. She looked very different in a festival outfit (yukata, Japanese hairdo) compared to her wedding outfit (fancy dress, Western hairdo), but she recognized me and said: "Ah, Jonas. Tettere!" Tettere is from a magic trick I do a lot recently.

Last year I did a magic show at the Sapporo Sheraton hotel, and the next day I ran into the bride and groom at the Shrine Festival too. They also looked very different in casual clothes compared to the wedding dress and tuxedo I had seen them in before, but they also recognized me. Not so many blond people in this city.

University flowers

Today I went looking for a post box with one of my colleagues. We had quite some trouble trying to find one (our university campus is huge), but we saw some nice flowers.

Magic bar Twister hanami: weird food, weird people, weird coincidences, no hana

If you climbed up the hill towards the temple, there were a few flowers left.

The last day of the Golden Week holidays, our magic bar had a "hanami". This word means "flower watching", but this year there were no flowers left at the end of Golden Week. In Hokkaido, hanami also means barbecue, and there were lots and lots of people having barbecues in the park this day. The guy from our team who was assigned to go and get a good spot was in the park at 6 a.m. and by then it was already difficult to get a good spot, he said. People where there as early as 4 a.m.! And the actual barbecue does not usually start until noon...

Japanese food, very healthy.

I have not seen people put noodles on the nets before (they usually use small aluminum plates).

Sausage fest

There was quite a bit of food to eat. Sausages, fish, vegetables, and endless amounts of lamb. And of course various types of guts. There was also a huge amount of alcohol. All kinds of alcohol. Some people then went up to the temple near the park and bought more alcohol, because apparently they make some at the temple.

There was another guy also wearing sunglasses, and also looking like a mafia member, so we took a photo together.

My friends sweatshirt turned very dirty very quickly.

There were quite a few interesting people coming to our barbecue. There were also people in the park for barbecue with other groups that came up to me and asked if I was from the magic bar. I said that we were all from the magic bar and pointed to the other five magicians there, but most people seemed to only remember me, for some reason.

Selfie and background photo bomb

Party hard, sleep after lunch

One guy I know from our magic bar was there partying with another group, but since he knows us too he came to our place every time he had to go to the toilet (we were in the same general direction). He then dragged me over to his other group and introduced me to them as his "zombie teacher", since I taught him how to paint his face to look like a zombie and where to get the paints etc. He looked pretty good when he did it himself.

Someone I know, not looking like a zombie.

In that group, which I was told was a random collection of people that were friends of friends etc. all starting with one guy who works as an announcer on TV, there was also a young girl I know. We visit the same weddings. And I had once run into the TV announcer too, and he vaguely remembered talking to me. Small world. They did not really know my zombie student who dragged me over to their group, though, so they wondered why I was there.

Surrounded by lots of people I don't know.

Someone I do know!

Booze made at the temple.

A final flower shot

One man hanami in Maruyama Koen

I took my bicycle to Maruyama Koen, a park where people do hanami (cherry blossom viewing) like crazy in Sapporo. The park was full of people having barbecues. This is, I am told, a local Hokkaido custom. In the rest of the country people just sit under the flowers and drink alcohol (and eat food they brought with them already cooked). In Sapporo you always have a barbecue under the cherry trees. In fact, in Hokkaido people also take "Do you want to go to the beach?" to mean "Do you want to have a barbecue, at the beach?". Which, again, I am told is weird to people from the rest of Japan too.

Most of the cherry blossoms were long gone when I got to the park, but the ume (plum trees) were looking nice. Some sakura (cherry blossoms) were still left too. Mainly in places with little sunlight.

I met one of my university friends in the park. He was there with his girlfriend. He asked me if I was there alone, and when I said "Yes" he said "Oh..." with a pitying look... I need to get some friends that can move around during the days (my friends work, so you can pretty much only meet them if you to their place of work).

A woman came up to me and said: "You are the guy with the "tettereeee!" magic trick, right?" Apparently she has been in our magic bar. And people tend to remember a trick where I keep saying "tettereee" (which is really annoying to Japanese people).

There were some festival style tents selling food on the temple grounds right next to the park, so I bought some "croissant tai-waffles". They were good.

There was a guy speeding around on something that looked like a cross between a Segway and a skateboard.

Some sakura still left in Nakajima Koen

Today I took a walk to the park right next to where I live. When I go there, I was met with piles of cherry blossom leaves on the ground and thought that I was too late for the very short cherry blossoming period. This year the trees bloom earlier than normal, one or two weeks earlier, since it has been very warm this year.

While the season was way past its peak, there were still some late trees that looked nice.

Sakura lecture

Now the tree that always goes first in our university campus is in full bloom. This is very early for Sapporo, where the sakura usually bloom by the end of Golden Week, so around May 8 or so. This tree is a special sort of sakura, and it is placed in a warm location too, making it go into full pink beauty a few weeks early.

When I stopped to take a few photos today, and older Japanese man came up to me and started talking to me about Japanese spring. He gave me a short lecture on what types of sakura are clones of what, which types have been developed in Japan, how far the cherry blossom front has progressed (it has just now hit Hokkaido), and much much more.

Spring comes early

The sakura (cherry blossoms) usually bloom in early May in Sapporo but they seem to be two weeks early this year. I saw a tree inside our campus that already looked kind of pink, and a few of the buds had already opened up.

Flowers and a suspension bridge

My relatives wanted to go see a suspension bridge, so we did. At the parking lot there was a big sign that said that today there was a "Margaret festival". I was wondering what kind of festival that might be, since Margaret is a common name in Sweden but not a common name in Japan. It turned out to be a flower festival featuring mainly something that in English can be called marguerite daisy.

Margarets (or Marguerites)

We walked for 20 minutes or so from the parking lot along the steep cliffs going down to the sea. The view was very nice. There were people fishing from the cliffs, but I did not see anyone actually catching anything.

We reached a small suspension bridge, which was fun to cross. It moved quite a lot from the weight of people walking, and from the fairly strong wind.

The bridge connected two cliffs with nothing of interest on either, and you could walk around from one to the other with about 5 minutes of extra walking instead of crossing the bridge, so what the point was of building this bridge, I do not know. Possibly to get tourists to come and take a look at it.

Me, my brother, and my sister-in-law reflected in a polished stone with a song carved into it.

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?

Receiving roses in the middle of the night

When I was walking home in the middle of the night on Saturday (Sunday morning) a drunk young woman asked me where I was from. I replied that I am from Sweden, so she said: "Then I will give you this flower", and gave me a rose. I have never seen her before (or since), but she looked like a hostess bar hostess.

The Hokkaido University Botanical Garden

In the afternoon, we decided to go to the Hokkaido University botanical garden. It has a nice botanical garden and also has a small Ainu museum.

Ainu coat made from birds

Ainu coat made from seals

I had heard that people working at Hokkaido University for free, so I went up to the lady at the entrance to ask if that was true. She waved me away and said in broken English that I should first go buy a ticket in the ticketing machine, then come to her. I asked in Japanese if it was free for Hokudai teachers to enter, and showed my staff ID. She was surprised that I spoke Japanese but complemented me on my Japanese and then said that indeed I could enter for free.