School Halloween Party

Today was a big day. Halloween party at school!

Some moms got together right after drop-off to decorate the gym. Some of these decorations are ones that Darrin brought from the States last week.

Around noon, the Grade 1 class got their costumes on. Alek, obviously, is a hedgehog. There are also a couple of pirates, a soccer player, and a ninja.

Here we get to see the back of the hedgehog. A-chan is showing off her tattoos (thanks again, Tracy!)

Upstairs in Grade 4/5, two boys are agape. Their teacher has arrived as a redneck Rapunzel, complete with Southern accent, bad teeth, and Texaco nametag.

The teachers had dressed as fairy tale characters....

Here are some of the kids...

Max went as "Ed," the human body model from his classroom.

Then the kids went on a trick-or-treat parade. They started down the alley, where parents gave them some treats.

There they go, through the local neighborhood!

They turned a corner and came back, through the shopping street.

Some of the local shopowners, alerted in advance to the festivities, were handing out candy, rice crackers, or clemintines.

Here's a closeup of the hedgehog:

Someday, I will do a blog on this shopping street. I love this street. Hugo says, "me, too!"

These boys were passing by on the bus. They seemed pretty excited to see the parade.

Back at school. Time to dig in to the loot.

And then head into the gym for some more fun.

Each class had carved a pumpkin. These pumpkins cost about 3000 each here in Japan. So you're looking at about $200 worth of squash right here in this pic.

The school is official friends with a school in Shiga prefecture. They came to the party, and did a dance for us. What did you think of the dance, Alek?

"A jungle dance."

"Did you like it?"

"They were yelling stuff, and I couldn't understand them. I didn't know if they were speaking Japanese or English."

"But it was a really fun dance to watch, right?"

"I heard too many bangs."

Each class had designed a game to play. Grade 4/5 had "zombie bowl." Those are body parts on the pins.

Hugo got up to the mike to describe the Grade 1 game.

The Shiga school sponsored a version of a bat relay. After spinning 5 times, you aimed a ball at those boxes.

Most people missed. But, you got to take your score home anyway! I love this. See? A zero does not have to hurt anybody's self-esteem.

After cleaning up, we went home. Another inventory of loot.

Some closeups of some of the indigenous foods.

Yatta-Man snacks.
Sweet little bag.
Hello Kitty marshmallow treats.

"What part did you like, Alek?"

"The trick or treating part."

"How did the candy haul compare to back home?"

"The pretzels are the same. But all the candy is totally different. Most of them are fruit candy."

"Tell me about your categories."

"When I sorted the candies on the floor, one of the categories was Marshmallows, the next one was Cookies, the next one was Fruit Candy, there was also Chocolate, I Don't Know, Regular Candy, Not Candy, Bars, like nut sticky bars, and the last one was Not Food At All."

Anything you want to add, Hugo?

"Everybody wore interesting costumes on the parade."