Ika Odori! Odore!

"What should I do with this then? I know, I'll just up the cuteness quotient until it goes away..."

So since I seem to be in the process of becoming the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, it's back once again to healthier times.

Karaoke in this woman's refurbished front room, complete with piano, bookcases and fully stocked bar. The usual karaoke antics ensued, with "Uh, I'm sure I know the lyrics to that Ace of Bass track, don't I?" et al. only with the owner's eight year old son serving the cocktails.

After that we joined the 200-strong winning team (Go Hakodate Dokku!) for the squid dance. Yes. Squid dance. The song consists of various ways to eat squid, and how great squid is. The dance consists of over two hours prancing down the street amongst *thousands* of others, and throngs of onlookers handing you paper cups of beer.

Note the threetone effect - I'd been recently grilled by the sun at Tachimachi, Bill (daughter has the mic above) was nicely tanned after the 30C summer and Olesia has that classical Russian look thing going on. The outfits were great, with teeny white nappies and our team name emblazoned front and back.

Ika po po po~!