Swedish fashion at H&M

Swedish fashion is famous in Japan. Swedish design in general is considered great. H&M recently came to Japan, and people stand (or stood, not sure how it is anymore) in line just to get into the stores. In Sweden, H&M is everywhere and it is considered nice clothes at a cheap price.

I bought a pair of H&M underwear, which I guess guarantees that people will not consider them "weird" (like most of my other underwear, or clothes in general).

Funny faces and funny underwear

I met a guy who runs a ramen restaurant and we had to put on coasters that you hang on your nose to make the lower part of your face look like an animal.

There were also coasters with human faces

I was also asked to show my underwear (this happens to me all the time in Japan). I had on a pair that says 粗品, which means "trifling gift" and is decorated like envelopes that you give presents with but where you have to excuse yourself for the present being such a worthless and trifling thing.

Puzzles and magic

In the bar Ropossa where I often eat, they have a new 3D puzzle. The standard set has 6 identical plastic bars that you can position so that they stay together in the shape of a cube. I was told that I should use two sets and make this slightly more complex shape. Which was pretty difficult.

Me and the magician Akkey trying to assemble this puzzle

Noticing that someone is taking pictures

Annoying face for the camera

It took me a few tries before I figured out how the puzzle was supposed to be put together. Then it took a few tries to put it together like that, since it would be really great to have one or two extra hands when assembling the pieces...

Incorrect configuration

Incorrect, but still something

The cubes should not be this loose

Finally getting everything right

There were other guests there too, of course, and I was asked to show some of them some magic tricks. They seemed to enjoy that and then took photos with me while wearing poo-shaped hats and weird glasses.

I also met the cousin of my friend who runs this bar. She was funny. She also played along very well when I was asked to do magic for her and the people sitting next to her.

When they were playing with Japanese spinning tops ("koma"), one of the other guests fell asleep. His friends managed to get a spinning to to spin on his head without him waking up.

I was, as is so often the case, asked to show my funny underwear too. I like this design, which has the Japanese symbol for "driver under training" that you put on cars to indicate that the driver does not have his licence yet. The text says "beginner" or "inexperienced" in Japanese.

More "fun-derwear"

I managed to ruin some of my funny underwear and ordered more from Amazon. The yellow ones have the Japanese sticker you put on a car to indicate that the driver does not have a license yet but is still in training and the text says "beginner". The black ones have the sign for "You have to be over 18 to enter" that Japanese shops use to separate the porn corner from the rest of the bookstore etc.

The red one could be read as a Japanese abbreviation of  "Cola can" (a can of Coca Cola) but also is the word meaning "crotch". The other two are the ones I already had, the Facebook symbol but the text changed to "green light tonight!" instead of "like" by changing one letter, and the Japanese present wrapping for very unpresuming gifts.

Hanging out with balloon artists in Tokyo

After spending a few hours in the Trick Art exhibition, my friend was going to meet her balloon artist friends (they were all in Tokyo for some balloon artist event) and have dinner with them. I tagged along.

One day before we met in Tokyo, my friend put a photo of this balloon artist on Facebook with the title "taking photos secretly now". I commented that if I take photos of people in secret, I am told that it is a bad thing to do, and when she did it she got hundreds of "likes", a very unfair world. She said it was OK if I did it of her. So I took a photo in secret of the same balloon artist (who I had never met before) and put it on Facebook with the same title. The girl in the photo commented that if I kept doing things like that, she would find me and take photos of my underwear. So I uploaded a photo of me showing my underwear in reply. Japan, crazy country.

The balloon artists all had dinner at a cheap but good restaurant near the hotel where the balloon event was taking place. In the end, one guy ended up paying for everyone else, because they had helped out at the event. He paid for me too, despite me not helping out. But he thought I was funny, I guess.

All you can eat salad

Cheese, rice, chicken

Frozen mandarin orange, very nice in the Tokyo heat. Balloon artist fingers, not nice when trying to take photos of your food.

My friend wanted me to do some magic to her friends, so I did. She also said that people always kept taking photos of my underwear (which my friend indeed also had done back in Sapporo), so they all did that too...

Magic

Underwear and t-shirt in similar styles.

Not sure what is going on here.

"Take off your pants" in the middle of the street

On Saturday I ran into the girl who told me that Amazon sells Japanese Facebook style joke underwear. She usually asks me what underwear I am wearing and tells me to show her. This day was no exception, so I ended up getting photographed in front of one of our biggest department stores.

Since some people I know started taking photos, random people I have never seen before, also not known to my friends, came up and figured that since so many people are taking photos, something worth photographing must be going on so they also came over with their cameras...which got a bit weird.

Taking your trousers off in front of strangers; just another day in Japan

In Japan it happens to me quite often that people ask me what underwear I am wearing, and also that they ask me to show them my underwear. Sometimes people that I know ask me to do that, sometimes people I have never met before. Yesterday it happened to me three times during one evening.

Luckily, I was wearing funny underwear. These are from Japanese Amazon and shows the Facebook "Like" symbol. In Japanese the "Like" function is called "いいね", which means something like "that's great" or "I like that". These underwear come with the text "いいよ" instead. This changes the meaning to something like "That will be fine (I don't mind if you to do that)" or "Tonight is OK!" or perhaps something like "you have a green light tonight". People thought this was funny. Also, the t-shirt says 天才, which means "genius". They thought that was funny too.

Since this happens to me all the time in Japan, I have come to believe that this is just normal in Japan. Some of my Japanese friends often say that this is not at all common in Japan and that there must be something wrong with that makes me run into weirdos that ask me to take off my trousers all the time.

My theory is that they are wrong. I have seen the same thing happen to lots of other people too. Last night there was another guy who also was asked to take off his trousers and show his underwear. I took some photos of him to show my friends that it is not just me, next time they bring up their unconvincing theories.