Halloween!

Halloween is not really celebrated that much in Japan, but luckily our school rented out a space for us to have a costume party. We had to buy tickets to attend (the gaijins got a 500yen discount but ticket prices were 2,500yen) but it was at a nomihodai (all you can drink) in Shibuya. This party was open to anyone from Meiji Gakuin. There were 80 people in attendance, but it turned out to be something like 11 international students, 25 or so 'buddies' and the rest were just Japanese students. I felt a bit like a celebrity though, I was asked by so many strangers if they could take a picture with me.  There was a bar and finger foods to nibble on, and also a stage. It takes the Japanese people a while to warm up though (they're very shy) so mostly it was the gaijins making fools of themselves dancing.

 While the baka gaijins (stupid foreigners) danced on the stage the majority of the Japanese people just took pictures. There were so many pictures being taken...

Group shot! The most popular costume was wearing a high school uniform and going as a schoolgirl or schoolboy. Some of the other costumes were witches, devils, taxi driver, alice in wonderland, spiderman, bear, penguin, frog, britney spears, little red riding hood, panda, and snow white, I went as a hippy. The party only lasted from 7-9pm, so afterwards a bunch of us went to take purikura (the photobooth thing that's popular in Japan).



our original intentions were to catch the last train home (sometime around midnight) but we managed to miss it so we ended up going to Karaoke to wait for the trains to start running again. Karaoke is always a lot of fun, even if you don't have a great singing voice.

I'm eating ナタデココ(natadecoco) apple flavored jelly(jell-o). Still haven't quite figured out what exactly natadecoco is though, it has a chewy texture and tastes a bit like pineapple, but according to wikipedia it is:  jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water, which gels through the production of microbial cellulose by Acetobacter xylinus. Yummy!

Walking home from the train station this morning it occurred to us that we've officially been in Japan for two months now. I feel like I've done so much in that time but there is still so much left to do! And the time is really, really flying by.