Things you may see in Stockholm

People actually fish in front of the government building (across the street from the castle)

Here are some random photos I took in Stockholm.

Dead rat

Houdini clothes. Impossible to get out of?

There is a game for young people called "Ryska posten", but this seemed to be real delivery company.

This shirt says: "Everything is your fault". Which is funny so I bought one.

Life sized Iron Man and Captain America in front of a toy store

A Japanese wedding again

I was invited to another summer wedding, this time one of my magician friends. I also knew the bride from her coming to our magic bar quite often before they started dating.

The wedding was held up in the mountains on the outskirts of the city, so there was a free bus service provided. While waiting around for the bus, I ran into some other people that looked suspiciously like they were also going to the same wedding. They thought my t-shirt was weird for going to a wedding. It says 「ある意味神」 which translates roughly as "In some sense, a God". Since I planned to button my shirt and put on a jacket when we arrived at the wedding, I figured any t-shirt would be fine, but they still took photos of me and put them on Facebook.

At the wedding I met lots of people I had not seen in a long time, which was fun. There was lots of really good food too.

A friend who just barely fit into the suit he wore at his own wedding one year ago was teased by the master of ceremonies throughout the whole party for having "very tight pants".

Parts of the party were outside, so people sprayed themselves with bug spray in huge amounts.

When it was time for the main dinner, I went looking for my assigned seat. I first looked around where everyone else from our magic bar was sitting, but my name was not there. Not at the table for staff from the bar nor from customers of the bar. Since I know the bride too, I checked at the table for friends of the bride and the table for friends of the groom too, but no luck. Finally I found my name on the table for "Family of the groom"... So I ended up sitting with the father, mother, uncle, and brother of the groom. I had met the mother once in an elevator, but the rest of them were new to me. They looked at me with some suspicion (them being fairly sure I am not one of their relatives), but I pointed to the card on the table with my name. My friends keep springing weird surprises on me at their weddings...

My seating arrangements were a bit surprising

The people I sat with

The cake was decorated by the guests

The bride

The groom

People I know

Groom and me

At Japanese weddings, some people send video messages if they cannot attend. This time there was a message from a guy who came to our magic bar quite a lot when he lived in Sapporo. He had also managed to get the famous (on TV in Japan) magician Akira Fujii to participate in the message, which was pretty surprising.

Cake cutting and giving your significant other a piece of cake is always important at Japanese weddings. This time they also got to "feed" one friend of their choice.

Cutting the cake

The "first bite"

The "really big bite"

Feeding a guest of your choice

"Feeding" one more guest

There was a large selection of meats grilled before your eyes

These tomatoes were excellent

Cheese was melted on the spot for you

One of our regulars from the magic bar recently ate a lot of tomatoes on a trip to Hong Kong, so people kept bringing him tomatoes at the wedding too.

After the first big dinner was over, everyone relocated to our magic bar and there were a few more hours of partying. I ended up mainly working; making drinks, washing the dishes, doing magic, etc. It was still pretty nice, since the old team that I used to work with were all there and we worked together again/

No rest for the wicked

Magic bar Surprise in Akasaka

If I chose not to sleep very much, I had time to go to a magic bar in Tokyo before the research meeting I was there for. Since it was Friday night, I figured that was an OK compromise, and visited the magic bar Surprise. Our work meetings are lately usually located near Ichigaya in Tokyo, and then Surprise, which is located in Akasaka, is very close.

They remembered me, and said that last time I was there I wore a weird t-shirt. Which they thought I did this time too.

T-shirts with my favorite magician

One of my friends printed two t-shirts and gave them to me. They both have photos of my favorite magician on the front. They also have a giant barcode on the back, that hopefully complete strangers will scan when they see me stand around at a red light or something.

Balancing game and bad puns in Japanese

Recently I was asked to try building a tower of dice on top of a wobbly surface. I was told that someone had built one to the height of 15 dice and I had to beat that before they would let me leave. I managed to get to 20 and take this photo, but the 21st toppled everything. But at least they let me go home, haha.

They also uploaded the above photo of me to Facebook. One man I know commented that my shirt says 恋人募集中 ("koibito boshuuchuu", "taking applications for the position of girlfriend", or more casually "looking for a girlfriend"). I replied that "I have 20 Xs, though". In Japanese, this joke is better, because "X" means a crashed marriage, so "バツイチ" ("I have one X") means you have been married and then divorced once and バツニ ("X 2" or "two Xs") means you have divorced twice (each divorce gives you one "X"). Being "X 20" would be quite impressive in some sense, but also means you are unlikely to be able to keep up a relationship.