Halloween 2007

Being a traditionally western holiday, Halloween has only recently begun to catch on here in Japan. Although it does pop up from time to time; mostly in decorations, but I did see an ad for a haunted house:

I have been giving Halloween lessons at my schools for 2 weeks now, during the preparations for which I've actually learned a lot of things about the holiday I never knew myself. Like how it didn't really appear in the US until the mass Irish immigration in the late 1800's, or how costumes weren't mass produced until the 1930's. Trick-or-treating wasn't really a phenomenon in the states until the 1950's. And did you know that the original jack-o-lanterns were made from turnips? Pumpkins are a native crop of the Americas; it wasn't until people started making them there that carved pumpkins became the norm.

Anyway, this past Saturday I had the honor of teaching one of my JTE's how to carve pumpkins, with her kids :) She brought the squash, I did the instructing. The pumpkin I ended up with looked more like a football to me than a pumpkin, and wasn't well suited for a scary face. So I opted to go with something rather Stewie-like, heh heh
They were surprisingly difficult to carve. One I think because they are slightly different here than at home (small and green vs big and orange) and two because the knives we had weren't really well suited for pumpkin-carving. But we made the best of it




In the end I think her's came out more Halloween than mine


I should try to find the pics from a couple of years ago when we carved them to look like they were puking, heh heh heh

That night I ended up at a costume party in town that was held by a private English language school at the only "club" in Takayama. Probably the smallest "club" I've ever been in, I think it's actually smaller than my apartment. Then again, this isn't Tokyo. But it was fun to get out and see what other people came up with. I didn't have nearly the resources or time to put together something on par with last year's dead flight attendant, so I took the easy route and went as a cat. It was actually quite popular here as everything in Japan is "cute" - I think I remember only one scary costume the entire night!

I also managed to talk one of my JTE's into going to the party with me, heh heh. He had a fantastic blond wig, and I insisted he put on the bunny ears to complete it.

With my friends Theresa and Rie

The crazy smoking Hamster

Colorado, plus one

Angela had an amazing mermade costume she claimed was attached the same way you would wrap yourself up in a kimono o_O how she managed to pull it off is beyond me, but she looked great

Our local South African came as Pooh-san

And my favorite costume of the night, Billy's Boot Casa

I think I may have posted before how crazy they are for Billy's Boot Camp here. They're always shocked when I say it's pretty much past it's prime in the US, lol