Pizza again

Swedish pizzas are bigger than Swedish dogs.

Swedish pizza

In Japan, pizza is considered Italian food, and since Italian food is considered fancy luxury food, pizza is also considered fancy and expensive food. So pizzas are small, come in refined taste, and cost a fortune. In Sweden, pizza is one of the few types of food that is cheap. They are big, unhealthy, and delicious. I try to eat pizza at least once every time I go to Sweden.

Pizza with marshmallows

At the airport on my way to the early Saturday morning research meeting, I found a place selling "marshmallow pizza". That sounded weird, so I bought one. It was not good. Not bad, but not pizza and not particularly good. Very sweet.

They also had cream puffs with melted chocolate instead of cream. They were very nice.

Sunny Napoli pizza, with spaghetti

This is a "Sunny Napoli" pizza. It is good.

It has spaghetti, which is a bit weird to find on a pizza, though.

Late night pizza

Last week I did some magic at the 5 year anniversary party of a bar where a friend works. Since it was a five year anniversary, people kept giving me champagne. I got 8 or 9 glasses from various strangers throughout the night.

The party kept going for two days, so I was asked to come show some magic the second day too. I figured I should have a sturdy dinner first, in case people kept filling me with alcohol again. So I cooked some nice food at home and ate a bit too much. There was less champagne the second day, but people gave me whiskey, beer, and Japanese booze of various kinds.

On my way home, I stopped by our magic bar to dump some magic props I had used. Then I ran into a guy who had been at the five year anniversary the first night. He had ordered several very large pizzas, some fried chicken, spring rolls, and more. He and his friends gave me lots of food because they were in a good mood. So I guess on the "trying to lose weight" front, I did not have much success. But the pizzas were really good!

Small children and insanely difficult ball games

Last week when I stopped by Ropossa to have some dinner, suddenly the place was filled with kids. One of the guys I went to Las Vegas with was there, with two of his children and four of his grandchildren. They had ordered pizzas, so I got some very nice pizza by just being there.

The grandchildren where between 1 and 3 years old, I think. One girl and three boys. One of my neighbors, who was the "Miss Ice Queen" of the Susukino Ice Festival two years ago, was also there. The three young boys all swarmed her and climbed all over her and wanted to play with her the whole evening. The little girl did the same with me. Everyone else thought this was funny, because apparently that is how the grownups in the family also behave.

When they left, someone else showed up and brought lots of bread they had baked. I received huge amounts of bread too. And of course you get pasta and other "light" dishes as the regular serving in the place too...

They have lots of games in Ropossa, and they showed me a new game. You have a big plastic spoon, and a fairly heavy yellow ball. You are supposed to balance the ball on the spoon, and then move the ball through different obstacles. First you throw it through hoops and catch it with the spoon again, then you put it in a slide that shoots out the ball and try to catch it with the spoon etc. The final goal is to place it on a small pedestal using nothing but the spoon. This was insanely difficult. You are supposed to do all of these in sequence, and if you drop the ball you have to start over. It took me more than 30 minutes to clear the obstacle course.

I was told that the only other person who had cleared all obstacles in sequence is the mama of Ropossa. Almost no one has even managed the final balancing thing, even without doing the rest of the obstacles first. So it is not just that I suck at sports, the game is actually quite difficult.

2 pizzas at 2 a.m.

When doing magic the whole night, you get kind of hungry if the place is really busy and you have to work a lot. Even if you had a big dinner before going to work. Recently this led to me having two pizzas at 2 or 3 a.m., which does not sound that healthy. But these are very small pizzas, so I am sure they have almost no Calories.

America = pizza

For my last dinner in Las Vegas I wanted to try American pizza. There was a place called "New York pizza" in our hotel, so I went there. I saw something that looked more like a loaf of bread than a pizza, which seemed interesting. I wanted to try some more "standard" stuff too, so I ended up with a slice of pizza with spicy sausage and mushrooms, and one rolled up thing with ham and cheese.

Both of these were great. Junk food, but good. Both were also surprisingly large, so this was much more food than I needed. My friends were not interested in pizza, so they had already left to go gamble their money away in the casino instead, so no help from them.

I was a little surprised that you got a plastic container with extra tomato sauce to add as you pleased. This sauce was also very good, but neither in Sweden nor in Japan have I received extra tomato sauce. In Japan you get Tabasco when you order pizza, because Japanese people for some reason believe that pizza is supposed to be very spicy food. In Sweden you get shredded cabbage with vinegar, which is some weird Scandinavian pizza tradition.

Swedish pizza

Pizza

I met up with one of the few people I still keep in touch with in Stockholm. Since he wakes up ridiculously early in the morning and goes to work early, and I wake up ridiculously late and work late, the 8 hour time difference between Sweden and Japan means that we work more or less the same hours. This makes it easy to stay in touch by chatting at work when you are waiting for software to compile or things like that.

Lingonberry juice, not available in Japan but common in Sweden.

We went to a lunch restaurant and had pizza. I try to have pizza once every time I visit Sweden since Swedish pizzas and Japanese pizzas are very different. The pizzas in Japan are tiny and pizza is considered to be luxury food (because it is Italian food and Italian restaurants are fancy) so it is also very expensive. In Sweden pizzas are junk food and one of the few things that are not expensive to eat. The taste is different too, with Japanese pizzas being very refined, healthy, etc. in contrast with the junk food fat and cheap taste of Swedish pizzas. I like both types.

Green tea, also common in Japan.

We also took a walk around the blocks of IT companies and research institutes where my friend works, and had a chat in their lunch room.

It had rained, so parts of the path were less than ideal for my summer shoes.

Lots and lots of microwave ovens for the staff to heat their lunches in.

Menu and Pizza

A friend of mine who runs a small restaurant asked me for help with translating the menu to English, after they had a large group of foreigners who did not speak Japanese show up. In return, he gave me a deluxe pizza!

Bikkuri Donkey pizza and magic practice

Trying to look like a magician

My friend's wedding is drawing closer and we have spent several days recently building props for a big illusion he wants to do at the wedding. We also brought all the big stuff and went up the mountain to where the wedding reception will be to check if they fit through the doorways, if the camera angles are OK etc.

Practicing

We also had dinner at Bikkuri Donkey ("The surprised donkey") a chain of cheap restaurants for young Japanese to have "hanbagu", minced meat patties. They have also started selling pizzas, so we ordered one to see what they are like. It was good.

Surprised donkey food and pizza

Sapporo Beer Garden

During one month in the summer, our Odori Koen park turns into a huge beer garden. The park is huge, and it is filled with plastic chairs and rickety tables. When the weather is good, tens of thousands of people show up during one day to drink beer and eat expensively priced cheap food.

Cold and overpriced yakitori. Pretty good.

This is also often done dressed in yukata. Since I had been talking about my new yukatas, one of my Japanese friends had become interested in wearing a yukata herself too. She invited a bunch of friends to all dress up in yukatas and go to the beer garden. Since I was the igniting spark for the whole event, I was also invited.

Cold but expensive pizza. Not bad.

She said that: "Everyone else will also wear yukata, so that should be fun right? But there are only girls coming, so maybe that will be boring for you?" I figured ending up with a harem of young women would not be that bad, so I also joined them.

The weather was bad, cool and rainy. Which meant that it was possible to get seats even for our slightly large group. We got seats with a tent-like roof over us, so we would not get drenched if it started raining more heavily.

Selfie in the beer garden

It was quite nice. I had to go to our magic bar to perform later during the evening, but the girls were kind enough to tag along and have an after party in our magic bar. They seemed to enjoy the magic too.

Yukata

Me and a lot of girls.

2014 Toyohiragawa Hanabitaikai (Fireworks)

Right when I got back from Paris, it was time for the big fireworks festival here in Sapporo, the Toyohiragawa hanabitaikai. In Japan, you always watch fireworks dressed in a yukata, so I rushed home from work and threw on my yukata. Luckily, I live where close to the fireworks festival location, so I can walk there. If you try to go by subway, you will spend an hour just trying to get up the stairs, since the subway is extremely packed with people all going to see the fireworks.

A large group of foreigners also wearing yukatas passed by near me.

One of my friends showed up in a yukata.

My Greek colleague's sister also showed up in a yukata.

I got a nice seat and sat around surfing the Internet on my phone. I got there two and a half hours before the fireworks actually started, and that was about the time when the good spaces where all taken. One of my friends and one of her colleagues showed up an hour and half later and joined me on my blue plastic sheet. An hour or so later, my Greek colleague showed up with his sister (who is here on vacation now). She was also dressed in a yukata, which was surprising and nice. She even had an obi (belt) that you have to tie yourself. I asked how she had managed to tie it so well, but she said a woman in a store (presumable the one that sold the yukata) had tied it for her.

Selfie at the fireworks

Heart shaped fireworks

New this year: double hearts

The fireworks were nice, as always.

After the fireworks, we went and had some food in a place run by one of my friends. He recently had to close his restaurant because the whole building was closing, but he reopened in a different building under a different name while I was in Paris.

Raw horse

Pizza with honey

We ordered some raw horse (because that is what Japanese people like to eat) and two small pizzas. One came with honey that you poured on it yourself.

Spicy pizza

Free "newly opened" chocolate