Special Star Wars exhibit and chance meetings

In September there was a special Star Wars related art exhibit in our Art Forest. All staff at our university got 70% off on the entrance fee for some unknown reason (and all students got in for free), so I went to see the exhibit. It was very nice.

There were some costumes and props used in the old star wars movies, but most of the things on display were items inspired by Star Wars. There were lots of paintings by various artists inspired by Star Wars. There were also model dioramas. And technical descriptions and detailed drawings of Star Wars machines. There were some videos of George Lucas talking about his relationship with Japan too.

You could not take photos inside, but there was a storm trooper you could pose in front of and a light saber you could borrow. There was also a big Darth Vader outside where you could take photos.

Since I was there alone I had to ask random strangers to take photos for me, or take selfies. But when I was about to leave and go home, a young girl said: "Jonas?" She is a friend of the wife of one of my friends and we have met many times in our magic bar. I also keep running in to her in random places, especially on Halloweens. In fact, I run into her so often that she probably thinks I am a stalker. I sure think she is a stalker... But she seemed happy to see me, because she said she has zero sense of direction and was not sure she could find her way back to Sapporo alone...

Selfie with Darth Vader

There were some people visiting the exhibit in Star Wars costumes. Some of them were really good.

There was also a shop were you could by lots of different Star Wars stuff. I bought huge amounts and ended up with a very large bag difficult to get into the bus on the ride home.

Star Wars hangers

Star Wars kokeshi dolls

Star Wars sushi plates

C3PO tea cup

Some of the stuff I bought

Darth Vader coins and storm trooper coins

Darth Vader sandwich maker

Storm trooper sandwich maker

Someone I know

Waiting for the bus home

I also found a vending machine selling small wooden puzzles, and bought lots of that too

The Art Park has a surprisingly beautiful bus stop.

Star Wars t-shirts at Uniqlo

On my "shopping because I am bored" round, I also found a bunch of Star Wars t-shirts at Uniqlo. Some of them were very nice, so I bought five.

This is Yoda. Playing UFO-catcher (crane games)!

R2D2 with graffiti. The graffiti is quite clever, actually.

The back of the Darth Maul shirt had the emperor.

The back of the Darth Vader was also pretty nice.

The shirt with the land speeder also had the intro text to the first Star Wars movie.

Land speeder on the front...

... Han Solo and Chewbacca on the back.

Starwars and more at Sapporo Snow Festival 2015

Starwars snow sculpture

The huge Starwars snow sculpture when lit up to show a red light saber

Every year we have the Sapporo Snow Festival here for one week. We get 2 to 3 million visitors (which is a lot in a city with less than 2 million citizens) during this week. There are huge snow sculptures, and there are large snow sculptures. There are very many snow sculptures. And it is cold.

This year, the coolest sculpture is the Starwars one. The temple above has some very nice projection mapping at certain times during the night, which was also very good.

I expected a lot of "Frozen" (the Disney movie) themed sculptures this year, and I was right. There were many many Olaf. There were a few Elsa and Anna too.

There are also many Yokai Watch (a game/anime/manga for kids that is very popular now) themed sculptures. Koma was very common, as was Jibanyan. I liked Whisper best.

It is the year of the ram now, so there were many sculptures along these lines.

Sapporo is famous for Jingisukan, barbecued lamb. This meant that there were also many sculptures featuring the "Jin-kun" Jingisukan character. The year of the ram is the year of the "sheep" in Japanese, so Jin-kun is very topical this year.

I liked this Evangelion (an anime/manga popular among nerds in the West and in Japan) sculpture.

This is supposed to be Yo Oizumi (and actor). I have met him (we were in the same TV show when I did magic on TV) and it kind of looks like him.

The "kao nashi" from the Ghibli movie "Spirited Away" was popular.

Hatsune Miku, a Sapporo vocaloid (singing computer program)

Funasshi was popular this year too, and I like the thing from the Nausica movie on the right

More projection mapping

Very interesting looking smoking room

They also build a trick jumping slope in the middle of the park during the festival

Some sculptures are made from ice instead of snow