Toto's Bar

I had to go on a quick trip to Kawasaki, which is close to Tokyo, and I found an hour or so to stop by Toto's bar and see some magic. There are two very cute owls there now. I also noticed that they had changed the color of the Toto's bar playing cards they have in the bar. Their logo is green, so they have started printing their playing cards in green now. Toto's bar is always great, and this time was no exception.

仕事で川崎に行くことがあって、東京で1泊した。ちょっとだけ「都々's Bar」に顔を出す時間もとれた。最近、フクロウ2羽いる。可愛い。他に、都々's Barトランプが今緑色のなっている。都々's Barのロゴが緑色なので、トランプも緑色にしたそうだ。都々's Barがいつも凄く楽しい。今回もそうだった。

Playing card present

Yesterday I stopped by our magic bar on my way home from work. I ran into a friend of mine who I have not seen in months, and he gave me a birthday present. This was somewhat surprising, since my birthday is in October.

昨日、仕事帰りでうちのマジックバーに寄った。たまたま友達がいたんだ。僕が誕生日プレゼントをいただいた！誕生日は10月だけどね。

I received two decks of cards. Both are Bicycle playing cards, which is a brand of cards very popular with magicians. I do not normally use Bicycle cards (I use super cheap playing cards made for kids, since they have very cute pictures on them), but they are very high quality.

プレゼントはトランプ2個だった。バイシクルというメーカーのトランプで、マジシャンで一番人気のメーカーなんだ。僕は普段バイシクルのトランプを使わない（ダイソーの子供用のトランプを使っている。可愛い絵が付いているから）が質の良いトランプだ。

The two decks I got yesterday were special designs that were extra cute. I liked them. One even came with an extra card that can be used for certain card tricks.

昨日貰ったトランプは特別なデザインで可愛いトランプだった。嬉しい。片方にマジック用のカード1枚も付いていたし。

Hard to use cards

Last week, a customer came to our magic bar with a deck of cards of his own. He asked me to do some magic with these cards, and they turned out to be really really difficult to use. It is difficult even to tell the suits of the cards! The suit is written in the outer ring of the card, but the same suit can have a ring in different colors, and the same color can be used for different suits... In the end, I did some magic with those cards and he was happy enough.

マジックバーに来てくれたお客さんがマイ・トランプを持ってきて、これで何かやってと言い出した。大変使いにくいトランプだった、笑。何とか大丈夫だったけど。マーク分かりにくかったけど。回りに書いてあるが同じハートでピンク色も緑色もある…わけ分からない。

Akira Fujiii cards ・ 藤井あきらトランプ

Apparently some of the chains of convenience stores here in Japan used to sell playing cards in collaboration with the magician Akira Fujii. He is frighteningly good with cards, but in Japan he is mostly famous for producing cards from his mouth (popularized by Bill Malone). The cards came with some explanations of magic tricks too, it says on the package. The jokers, and all the court cards, have Fujii-san's face. The quality of the cards is not great, though. One of our regular customers brought these cards to our magic bar.

前に、コンビニで藤井あきらのトランプ売っていたみたい。藤井さんはトランプでめちゃくちゃうまいが日本で一般人は口からトランプを出す変なおじさんくらいのイメージがあるらしい。トランプに簡単なマジックの説明も付いていたって書いてある。ジョーカーや絵札全部藤井さんの顔になっている。店の常連さんがこのトランプを持ってきた。