Happy Halloweenieeee!

Yasuyo as "me"

Allow me to give you the low down of a typical "holiday" party at the GC: The party begins with food. Everyone eats. Come hungry...always. The rest of the night is spent playing organized games. I envisioned a night of random carnival-like games but it was apparent that that idea just wasn't going to fly. Once the night arrived, I saw why: 30 kids (majority of them under the age of 12) running around, hyped up on sugar wasn't the best audience to keep under control. So this is how our party worked out: food (duh), followed by a walk through of the haunted house (I'll get to that in a second), games such as bobbing for apples and finding the candy in a bowl of whipped cream, and finally, a round of trick-or-treating.

Mummy Tempura

When it comes to food, Garlic Center never ceases to amaze me. Taka chan, the head-chef figure in the restaurant, is the son of a sushi chef and is pretty amazing in the kitchen. I look forward to the food at every GC party because it's recognizable and amazing on the taste buds. He had all the goodies out including an Japanese-revised American recipe that featured some kind of noodle and white sauce and was served in a Japanese pumpkin. The Japanese eat pumpkin like it's their job. I've had it more times than I can count at this point...some good, some bad. Anyway, the various pumpkin dishes along with a variety of oldies, but goodies, such as garlic fries and yaki soba, were awesomely filling and gave the kids enough energy to endure the rest of the evening.

Japanese Pumpkin

Find the candy!

Mama got him...

I'm not sure how long Halloween parties have been thrown at the Garlic Center or how many of them have included haunted houses, but Patrick told me that his haunted house was a hit last year and I was determined to make mine just as successful. True, I had never built a haunted house before and am personally very afraid of them, but I wanted one that would be as true to American custom as possible. I had quite the imagination in dreaming up a frightfully wonderful haunted house, but in Japan...options were limited. We were able to scrounge up supplies from the 100 yen store and from last year's batch, but I was apprehensive as to how well everything would work out. The morning of the party, I arrived at about 10am to begin haunted house construction. With the help of Yasuyo and Keiko, we put together a pretty spooOOooOOOooky haunted house. Unfortunately, no one had the chance to snap a picture of it before it became totally demolished, so I'll provide as much detail as possible. The entire back room of the GC was covered in black garbage bags (I believe we ended up using over 100 bags) and we tacked on as much fake spider web as we could to the walls of the room, making it stretch across so it would be stuck in the kids' hair. We hung up torn netting, lots of spiders, a skeleton and toilet paper was strewn about everywhere. To top it all off, I had downloaded haunted house music and sound effects to play in the background. As we were building it, I kept mentioning how I hoped that the kids would truly be scared (I'm not a horrible person) and Keiko continued to come up with ideas to terrify the kids as they walked through. So this is how it played out: the kids walked through the entrance (which was outside) to scary music playing and a long dark hallway. We had an overturned table behind which I hid, with a surprisingly frightening wig and mask on. As they came closer, I dropped the string that was holding the skeleton up and then jumped out, yelling and screaming so that they would run down the hallway. Yasuyo was behind some of the black plastic and started banging on it as the kids ran past her and finally, Keiko was at the end of the hallway with a giant ghost poster to chase them back in the other direction. Some of the kids were so scared, they didn't know what to do with themselves and there were definitely some tears at the end of it. Again, I'm not a horrible person...although I am holding back laughter as I recall the memories...it leads me to believe that I am going to really enjoy the Oni Matsuri with the hoikuens :)

The games to follow were much more laid back and not as drama-filled. There was some intense head-dunking during the bobbing for apples game and most of the kids spit out the salt water taffy candy that they had searched for in the whipped cream. Everyone, however, enjoyed their trick-or-treating adventure at the end of the party. Candy was only rewarded to those who asked for it correctly: give me the candy or else I'll play a dirty trick on you. Candy was given to all, eventually, and the night finally came to a close.

Although the party went over very well (I'm measuring its success by the amount of tears), it was planned at a rather inopportune time. We leave for Gilroy on Tuesday and I have to pack still!

Fun Fact... The enkai with Shimizu on Friday was awesome. A couple of them speak English, but we all got a kick out of my mobile dictionary on the keitai. Because of our adventures in translation, I learned a new word: たんしんふにん, which literally translates to "leave for one's new post without one's family". The phrase is used to describe someone (usually a male) who has left his family behind to take a job somewhere far away. This is very typical of Japan, especially with teaching positions. The higher level schools are governed by the prefecture and it's not uncommon for teachers and administrators to be moved around every few years. Teachers are often relocated and can only see their families during the weekends, and sometimes not even that much.