Chance meetings, Italian food, and Japanese magic

After spending a few nights in Sapporo after my Las Vegas trip, I had to go to Tokyo for work (again, I was there one day before my Las Vegas trip too). I had to leave the evening before the actual meeting and stay in Tokyo, since we had to start quite early.

I found an Italian restaurant in Ginza that serves nice food and where they also show you a little magic at the table. I was there once before, several years ago, and it was nice. I ordered a salad with raw salmon and some nice looking pasta. Both dishes turned out to be great!

A magician came over to my table and showed me quite a bit of magic too. Last time I was there it was another magician (they have several working there on different days), so it was nice to see a magician I had never seen before. When he was showing me some magic, four other guests also came in and sat down at a table close to mine. One of them said: "Ah, Jonas! Hello. Nice to see you again." He was a magician from a magic bar in Roppongi that I have been to several times, and he remembered me. Even the huge Tokyo feels small sometimes.

Christmas dinner

In Japan, Christmas is celebrated in two different ways. Either you eat Kentucky Fried Chicken (this is believed to be Christmas food in Japan) or you go and have a romantic date at a Western style restaurant. KFC has huge lines on Christmas, and you cannot buy anything there unless you have booked in advance (!!).

If you have a girlfriend, you are expected to go to a fancy restaurant and have an expensive dinner. I usually do not have a girlfriend, but one of my friends who is a girl also usually does not have a boyfriend, so we often have Christmas dinner together (and then at least people that do not know us will think we are a couple and not just very lonely losers, haha).

Last year we could not get a table at any Western style restaurant (at Christmas they are all fully booked) but this year we had Italian food. It was very nice.

My friend is very funny too. This year, the conversation was much darker than usual, but there were still funny moments too.

Back in Japan, having some Italian food

Back in Sapporo I met a friend of mine for the first time in over a month. She did not want to walk far from her office, and she wanted to have European food so we ended up in a place that seemed to be serving mainly Italian food.

We ordered too much, but that is OK because she is trying to put on weight she said. I think it was the first time I ever heard a girl say she is trying to gain weight. My friend is of course skinny (all my Japanese friends are), and she is trying to gain one kilo so she will over 39 kg. She could probably gain more and still look fine, I think... She says she has a hard time gaining weight because she quickly gets bored with food.

Italian food, lobsters, and raspberry wine

Home made salsiccia.

Pizza

A lobster that you can eat if you still have an appetite after looking him in the eyes.

Raspberry wine

Yesterday I had dinner at Gabrincho, a small Italian place where a friend of mine works. He now has a lobster crawling around in a small aquarium that says "You can eat half of me for 1800 yen" on it...

He also makes excellent pizzas. I tried his home made salsiccia sausage too. He gave me some of his home made raspberry wine to try, which was also nice.

Italian at Garbanzo again

Today I had a late (23:30) dinner at the Italian restaurant Garbanzo in Sapporo again. Today I had salad with cheese, and garlic toast. I then ended up doing magic for some customers (gold buddies of the owner) who were so impressed that I ended up drinking and eating with them for a bit too. There was some nice soup with spaghetti.

I also got to see the owner of Garbanzo do magic. Though we have known each other for something like 3 years, this was the first time I ever saw him do magic. He made a tissue turn into Chinese food, and made water disappear from two cups.