halloween

oh, when one can be an utter fool and be considered brave and innovative. in japan halloween isn't really celebrated, so it's become a tradition at gakusen for the exchange students to organize a party. we o.d.'d on candy, watched scary movies (i know what you did last summer, and the addams family), played some games, and of course carved pumpkins. my outfit is my host mother's yukata, though the shoes are my host father's (hers were way beyond too small - boy it's tough to walk around on shoe-shaped two-by-fours all day). cleo came as just-out-of-the-bath, which was a bold, yet well received costume. the other person in this photo of 3 fine young ladies is aoyama sensei, one of our teachers, wearing her samba outfit.







next up is the photo i like to call "dochira", which means "which one?"













we carved some truly enormous pumpkins, and put several faces on each so everyone got a chance to get in on the action. after scooping out all the seeds i asked a teacher if it was possible to find some spices so we could roast them on a hot plate, which we did quite successfully. it was the first time most of the japanese students had tasted pumpkin seeds - and were noticably skeptical at first.

and here's the whole motley crew, well, all that were there at photo time.


and what party would be complete without ridiculous games. one of these was a make-a-mummy race (bobbing for apples was out due to an excess of makeup and enormous apples in japan). this was going great till the phone rang, and help had to be rallied to the cause.....