Halloween (post-blog: good v. bad)

Halloween kicked off early this year with the Friday ALT-English-Day gathering at Kitako High School.  I decided to roll with a "Good versus Bad" theme in 2012 and start the festivities dressed as a princess, figuring all pink is about as far from my usual as possible.  Walking to my car in the morning, I passed a delivery man entering my building - the look on his face as he took in my tiara and overwhelming girliness was priceless.  Stopping at the convenience store a little further down the road had the same effect, with most people clearly wondering whether I was dressed up for Halloween or just because I'm a strange foreign person...

The English Day at Kitako itself wasn't too bad.  All of the 75 ALTs were dressed up in Halloween costumes ranging from snuggly animal onesie suits to cartoon characters to movie stars to the British royal family.  The classes themselves though got a tad boring after a while, as we were, as predicted, repeating the same activity over and over again simply with different students.

The Princess and her Superman (Viet)

The highlight of my Halloween though had to be my party-fun-times in Kagawa.  I ended up imbibing quite a bit on Friday night and didn't depart for Kagawa as early as I had hoped on Saturday.  Instead of visiting temples on my way over, I cranked the stereo up loud and got myself out of a hangover and into a party mood!  I first landed at Kristin's house in Marugame, where we got ready together (turns out I have zero talent when it comes to things like eyeshadow and fake lashes!) before driving the 20 minutes to Sarah's house in Takamatsu.  The rest of the girls were getting ready there and the costumes were divine.  There was an African princess, a cowgirl, a cute/crazy Ronald McDonald, a butterfly and the Statue of Liberty!  Needless to say, in my red dress and with flaming red hair, I was incredibly bright as Jessica Rabbit.

Dressed up as "bad girl" Jessica Rabbit for Halloween 2012.

L-R: Cowgirl (Soeng), Cute/Crazy Ronald McDonald (Hannah), African Princess (Leandi), Jessica Rabbit (me), Butterfly (Kristin) and the Statue of Liberty (Sarah).

Picture courtesy of Kristin S.

At about 9pm we set off to the city centre, parking the car and sauntering down the shotengai (shopping arcade) turning heads and causing a scene as we passed by.  Groups of people would literally stop walking and stare at us as we walked by.  There were a few whistles, lots of whispers and even a couple of sneaky photographs taken.

The music in the club was banging and I pretty much just spent hours dancing!  Of course, I did find time to make a few friends, stumbling my way horrendously through a conversation with some older Japanese guys intent on buying us drinks.  Sometime in the early hours we decided to switch venues and from there ended up in a greasy ramen joint for a late night noodle snack.  Eventually we made it home (not before a few hijinks!) and bedded down with some Maccas chicken nuggets at sunrise.  Surprisingly, the hangover wasn't at all bad and a lazy girls-day Sunday watching movies, eating Mexican and smoking hookah was a delightful end to a surreal weekend.

All out Halloween in Japan?  Done.