Halloween Hijinx

I was ready for it. I had been waiting for weeks in anticipation, and finally Halloween was here. Originally I had planned on going as Darth Vader, because during training here in Japan I bought a mask that even had a voice-changing effect. Alas, I couldn’t find a cape at the local toy store, so I bought an afro and went as Jimi Hendrix instead. I already have the daishiki, and I figured if I gave myself a week I could grow a bad mustache. It worked perfectly, and you can see for yourself in the pics on my photo website.

About a month ago I made a few new friends. A very daring girl named Emi (or Emi-ko as people around here are wont to call her) left a nice note in my mailbox saying that she was friends with the girl who had lived in my apartment before me, and asked if I would like to be friends as well. I can’t tell you how happy I was. In my head I was saying Yes! That’s exactly what I want! Friends! She also introduced me to a nice fellow from Omaha, Nebraska named Andy who is living in another town only two train stops away. So it was perfect, because now I know a couple more people close by, and have people to hang out with. The same day I met Emi she invited me over to her best friend’s family’s house for dinner, and along with Andy, who has been teaching the family English, we ventured over. It was a jolly good time, but I’m only telling you this as a way of introducing Emi and Andy and how I came to be at Andy’s Halloween party a few weeks after we had met.

Saturday night came, and I got myself ready to go. I was already at the train station, but luckily I got a hold of Emi and got a ride to Andy’s place instead. It was a wonderful night. There were perhaps 15 people there, and that was just right. Most of the people, as you would expect, were Japanese, and so I didn’t get much of a chance to speak to them at length, except a very nice girl named Shiyomi, who spoke English flawlessly. Perhaps I should mention that they both lived in Omaha for some time, and that’s how they knew Andy. See, the University of Shizuoka’s sister school is the University of Omaha, so maybe now it makes a little more sense why Japanese girls would be in Omaha. Other than that, there were a couple of other foreigners there as well; Andy’s friend Jo, a New Zealander whom I had met the week before, her friend Sierscha from Scotland, and their friend Matt, coincidentally from Toronto! I had brought my guitar, and so we alternated between playing songs off Andy’s computer and between some little performances by yours truly. Matt also plays guitar, so he played a few tunes as well. In the end, we were all quite intoxicated; I believe between Sierscha, Jo and I we drank 4 or 5 bottles of red wine. Uh… yeeeeah. Luckily I had a ride home with Emi-ko. Right. So that was the first of two excellent parties.

The following night I ventured over to Fujieda at around 5:00 p.m. to help set up the sound system at a club called Juicy Fruit where my supervisor Brad and I were going to be DJing that evening. He arrived about an hour later and we got everything ship shape with time to spare. Our friend Jordan, who I believe I introduced in the last blog, showed up about an hour after that, and the party was under way. People slowly started to trickle in, including Christine, Yosef and Mel from Hamamatsu, the first two of which are Peppy teachers. Ross, Jen and Ghazaleh, also Peppy teachers, showed up a little later. The place was starting to fill out as the regulars came in, each dressed in wonderful costumes, some of which you can see on the photo site. Juicy Fruit is quite a small place so it was packed in no time, with Brad and I hammering out the tunes all night long, and people dancing and banging on the drums throughout the room. We kept the party going until about 3:00 a.m. when the boss man, Minoru, an excellent fellow, (the Indian chief in the pictures,) told us it was time to wrap it up. Having been going since around 7:00 p.m. we were glad to shut it down. After gathering our stuff and changing back out of our costumes we ventured over to the train station with our gear. Unfortunately the trains stop running around midnight, so we were stuck in there till 5:30 in the morning. We pulled out a deck of cards and played the time away until the first trains arrived. Exhasuted, the west enders, that being Christine, Mel and I, hopped on our train and bid the others adieu. Those two girls were asleep almost immediately, and I just managed to hold myself together until I got to Fukuroi. The businessmen and other people heading to work that morning must have had a good laugh at us in our costumes there on the train passing out. And let them! Japanese people for the most part don’t even know what Halloween is. Yay to costumes and candy, parties and good times!