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Published: November 2nd 2005
ESS Halloween!
Here is the crew from the ESS Halloween PartyWell that is your Japanese lesson for the day, "Happi Harroween" is Happy Halloween in Japanese. Tough, I know. So, yes, this past weekend I celebrated my FAVORITE holiday (what can I say, I love costumes!), HALLOWEEN!!! Japan does not really celebrate Halloween, but that was not going to stop me from dressing in costume! As a matter of fact, it is becoming a bigger holiday because of the foreign influence. You think they would all trick-o-treat and make jack-o-lanterns becaues of all the Halloween paraphanalia they sell starting in September, but then again they really don't celebrate Christmas and they already have huge displays of Christmas stuff out and its not even December. I definitely had a blast this Halloween dressing up in costume and dancing like crazy.
First, I celebrated Halloween with my English club (ESS= English Speaking Society, hey I didn't make it up). I meet with them every Friday after school. The previous Friday we made a Halloween poster that was hung at school for all the students to learn about Halloween. It was quite an accomplishment. We had pictures, directions on how to make Jack-o-Lanterns, and small translations of Japanese and English. I was quite
Eat that Doughnut
The Japanese having trouble eating the doughnut proud of my girls! This Friday i suprised them with a great Halloween party. I told them to bring costumes and I thought they would forget them. Oh no, they brought some masks and hats to wear! It was great. I came roaring down the stairs in my pirate costume and barged into the party room. Other teachers and students started to think "what in the world is going on?" There were even 3 boys not in English club who decided to join our party. We started off by decorating masks and perssimmons. I have yet to see a real pumpkin in Japan, so we altered our Jack-o-Lanterns a bit by decorating tiny orange persimmons instead. Next we played my favorite game. We tied doughnuts to strings and then to a pole. The students had to eat the doughnuts without using their hands. Many of them had trouble with this. When it was my turn I did it in a matter of seconds. I told them that all those years at Halloween parties had paid off. For our last game we played "Pin the nose on the Jack-o-Lanter." Again, the students loved this. Now I am the big idiot, as
Eat that Doughnut
He's almost got it! I forgot to play my FAVORITE game (which was originally the main event for the party) which was the mummy game. I guess I will just have to do that with them another time. We also did not bob for apples which is a very traditional Halloween game, because apples here cost 2 bucks each! wowsers! All in all my Halloween party was a success. I am so happy that the ESS club had a great first Halloween experience.
Saturday, it was time for Hiroshima's Halloween party. We all met at the cement park (like most of our nights out) and started to pre-drink (although most of us had started prior to getting there.) Lisa and Pete went as fairies, Brian was a space cowboy, we don't really know what stirling was, and I was a pirate. I think my favorite part of the night was getting to the club. I decided it would be a good idea to stab random Japanese people as they went by and say ARRGGHHH. Most of them played along and pretended like they had just been stabbed. The only person who was not happy was a cab driver when i stabbed the hood
of his cab. whoops!
The party was at a club called Chinatown. We danced all night! The costumes were phenomenal! I thought I had lost my sword half way through the night and was really sad. Toward the end of the night Lisa and I were in the men's bathroom (don't ask why, I don't know) and as Lisa slips on puke she turns around and there, on the back of the toilet was my sword, unscathed and unpuked on. Somehow I made it home wtih my entire costume, including the eye patch and clip on earring. at around 2:30-3 it was time to go so we piled into a taxi and headed back to kabe. At 9 am there was a festival at the shrine in front of my house...what a nice wake up call! Sunday Lisa and I went back to Hiroshima to retrace our steps to find her bag and my Ketai. I thought my ketai was gone forever, yet then I remembered I am in Japan. It was found by one of the party organizers and is on its way to my house now! Gotta love Japan! A GREAT HALLOWEEN!!
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