Thursday, November 4, 2010

oooooooooooooooooooo.................




Yeah, yeah, I know everyone else is writing about it too, but this is Halloween in Japan - not your traditional Franklin street stuff.

No, this is Halloween in Japan, where people also have no idea where the festival comes from, but decides to celebrate it anyways - because any excuse for booze and costumes has got to be a meaningful event, amirite?


Stolen off Google Images: beats me why such a dastardly school as such an awesome street

The excuse: is semi-religious, actually. Hallowe'en is the lazy man, Scottish pronunciation of Hallow's eve; which means the day before All Saints Day. But between the pagans, Tim Burton, and all the bartenders of the last 1000 years, no one except the Catholics celebrates November 1st, and EVERYONE celebrates October 31st. With things that are diametrically opposed to... well, saints. Hence Casper, Sabrina, and, of course, this guy (who wins Nick's best costume award):


There're actually three of them, but I don't have their pictures

Roun
d 1: Himeji

In anticipation of a sleepless weeken
d (and partly to fix the national disaster that is my apartment), I took a day off on Friday and clocked my hours with the sandman. It was delicious. I then proceeded to laze the day away, and at precisely 6pm (or there abouts), I donned my legendary "Venetian Pirate" costume (tm), and made my way to town for the first night of revelry and debauchery.

Nee
dless to say, I was the talk of the town that night: children screamed at my ferocious getup, youngsters (ie my students) came up for high-fives, mothers just stared - all sense of Japanese politeness forgotten - and the old people... well, just ignored me. I guess they got used to it between Kyle and my 4 other predecessors. Granted, it was only a 5 minute walk to the train station, but a bright red coat is hard to miss, and word gets around fast in Japan :P

In short, train ri
de win.


That is one MEAN scimitar, deshou? (also expensive)

The party itself isn't really much to write home about, unfortunately... typical gaijin Halloween party, with a few confused Japanese friends thrown in for good measure. Chip did an AMAZING job pulling it all together though, and almost eight hours of karaoke, midnight food runs (oh how I've missed you), and properly delightful English drunk talk.... home, sleep, and Corpse Bride.

Not in that or
der... don't exactly remember either, come to think of it...

E
dit: interesting note, by the way. Karaoke is the PERFECT after-after-party. They should have it in America.


Round 2: Osaka

No hangover from the first night, so I guess I was doing ok...

Halloween in Osaka was just another wil
d party, similar to America but simultaneously less crowded yet more energetic. I won't bother with the boring "well this is what I did" stories, so here are my observations.

1. Halloween in Osaka has waaaaaay more men than women.

2. Except at the right clubs, which we were not at.

3. Which left us with a lot of
desperate Japanese men hitting on the girls in our group... And a lot of cougars hitting on the guys.

4. The Ma
d Hatter makes an AMAZING costume, especially if you do the face paint. And the Japanese excel at costumes. Seriously one of the guys there just dropped my jaw... I was about to ask him for an autograph before I realised that Johnny Depp was probably not in Osaka. Oh well.

5. They have poutine in Osaka.


Number 5 being, obviously, by far, the most important (and delicious) observation. See next post.

Rightio, time to leave the office and get home, so I'll leave you with...


Roun
d 3: Nate's birthday in Osaka


The birthday boy

Did I mention I didn't sleep much this weekend? I stayed in town for Nate's birthday dinner, and bunked at Roger's to sleep off the smoke that now permeated my clothes. That's what you get for partying till dawn, I guess. Then again, that was one thing I missed when I was at Duke... the parties start too early, and they end too early in NC. The real Walk of Shame is when you've been out partying all night, and you're going home still in your sweaty, alcohol-reeking clothes. And you're on the same train as all the church goers for half an hour. While hungover. And it's plain to see you did NOT get laid.

Anyways, onward to food!! (soon, I promise)

4 comments:

  1. Poutine in Japan? What awesomely weird things do they put on it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. that is what i call an awesome costume, nick! so legitt..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy - it's actually pretty plain poutine.... just the gravy and cheese - no onions, bacon bits, nothing... x.x

    Vero - thanks ^_^ spent a whole day in Kobe shopping for it :P what did you go as?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I enjoyed reading your insights on Halloween in Japan . An interesting piece.
    Ken

    ReplyDelete