Yunomae Halloween festival

Yuck.  It’s already Friday of this week, and I HATE the fact that I have yet to post one blog!!    Anyway, the first and foremost blog of the week needs to be about my Halloween party last weekend. 

As most of you probably know, Ian and I planned a Halloween festival for the kids of Yunomae. Since they don’t celebrate Halloween over here, Ian and I wanted to bring our American Halloween traditions to them!    After a little last minute planning and hemming up Ian’s costume on Friday night, we had to wake up EARLY on Saturday morning for a full day of activities.  Our 5:30AM wake up call was Margaret.  We had to take her to Yatsushiro to catch the Shinkansen to Osaka so that she could catch her flight.  Margaret’s a morning person, but Ian and I groggily stumbled out the door and took the long way Yatsushiro so that Margaret could see the beauty along the 219.  To the right are gorgeous green mountains, and to the left is the Kuma River valley.  Beautiful! 

We got to Yatsushiro, bought her ticket, and dropped Margaret off at the platform.  Ian and I both agreed that the longer we stay here, the easier it is to say goodbye to people.  The first time I left Paducah was excruciating.  The second time felt less like I was LEAVING home and more like I was GOING home.  When Mommy left after her vacation here in August, I cried a little, but it wasn’t any big deal.  Then when Margaret left, it was also more like a “see you!” instead of a “good bye.”  In fact, we told her that we’d see her in August.  Margaret, who is a champion of us staying one more year, winked and said, “I’ll see you when you get home” (meaning….whenever that may be) . 

Ian and I grabbed breakfast and got back on the road to Yunomae.  We were actually very surprised with the traffic in Yatsushiro.  That night, Yatsushiro was hosting its annual fireworks festival, which is one of the biggest in all of Japan.  We went last year, and it was indeed spectacular!  Even though we were in town at 8:30AM, a good twelve-ish hours before the fireworks even began, traffic was ALREADY crazy.  There were already street vendors setting up, people carting their blankets to the park, parking attendants directing traffic, and stupidly horrible drivers making poor choices to be on the road.  Ian and I were glad to leave Yatsushiro behind us and get back on the 219!! 

We actually had a pretty interesting thing happen to us on the way back.  Ian likes to drive with the window down and the heat on.  He said that he heard a tink but didn’t think about it until he happened to look down and see a dazed suzumebachi (poisonous hornet) whipping its stinger around in his lap.      The suzumebachi are the largest hornets in the world and can kill a human with just one sting.  Normally, people don’t die from one sting, but if you do get stung, you have to get to the hospital…..VERY QUICKLY. I didn’t see any of this, but I heard his freak out.  Ian smacked the hornet to the ground and stomped on it several times.  He pulled the car to the side of the the road.  I had no idea what was going on and thought that it was a spider in the car.  As soon as he pointed at it and I realized what it actually was, I screamed “GET IT OUT!  GET IT OUT!!!!”  We had a pair of chopsticks left over from breakfast, and I tossed those to Ian so he could throw the (STILL ALIVE) hornet onto the road without touching it.  A nursery school van ran over it, but the DAMN.  THING.  STILL.  LIVED.  We got the heck out of there ASAP…..keeping our windows rolled UP after that. 

We got back to Yunomae a little after 10AM and started setting up the town gym with Krista, Joe, David, Mollee, Katakin, Margo, Shara, Melissa, and Sara.  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would with all of us working together.  There were six booths in total: haunted flash light tag, mask making, bobbing for apples, face painting, decorating trick-or-treat bags, and a ghost and pumpkin toss (like a clown mouth).  We pulled out all of the tables and chairs that we needed, hung up our decorations, and then were finished.  It strangely reminded me of setting up for Prom…….  Something that turned out quite wonderfully was the guys’ booth, haunted flash light tag.  I was a little miffed at the guys for not planning it out a little earlier, but I thought that it was awesome the way it worked out.  They used the stage and closed the curtains to make it completely dark, put some tables up for obstacles, and went to the 100 yen shop to buy a few glow sticks.  It was pretty amazing and by far the most popular booth.

Once we finished, we walked over to the restaurant in town and had lunch, arriving back slightly after 1PM.  Everyone put the last minute touches to their booths and dressed in their costumes.  Kids were so excited that they even started arriving at 1:25PM.  We expected them to be early, but not that early!!   Ian and I quickly got out to the registration booth and started the whole process.  Ian was the money taker, and I assigned kids group numbers and handed out trick-or-treat bags.  One by one as the kids came in, they looked absolutely adorable in their costumes.  The most popular costumes by far were witches and pumpkins (because these costumes can be easily bought at the 100 yen shop).  One kid showed up shirtless with his chest painted.  Someone asked him what he was, and he said a pumpkin.  When they questioned why he didn’t have a shirt on, he said that pumpkins don’t wear shirts.  I see your point, kid!  Everyone’s favorite costume for the day was Obama.  President Obama is very popular over here, so it’s no surprise that a kid had a mask of him.  What WAS surprising and funny were the elements that went with the costume.  The kid had on normal clothes and was carrying a toy gun and a stuffed lion (picture below).  It was the most random and hilarious costume I’ve seen!! 

 

The entire Halloween festival went really, really well, and there were only a few hiccups.  My supervisor showed up to help, the town newspaper guy was interviewing kids and taking pictures, and I know that the kids enjoyed it.  I was too busy running around making sure that everything was running smoothly, re-filling trick-or-treat buckets, announcing that it was time to change booths, and other administrative things to talk to the kids too much, but Sara and Margo told me later that all of the kids were saying things like “Melissa-sensei is the best!  This is so much fun!!”    Awwwwwww!!  Things like that just warm my heart! 

I was afraid that someone was going to get injured in the flash light tag game, but Ian reported back that there was only one elbow to the face, and the kid was quickly comforted by a piece of candy.  I also used candy to comfort kids.  I found one girl bawling her eyes out beside the haunted flash light tag booth and REFUSING to go back in because she was scared.  Poor thing!  I simply sat her down, gave her a candy, and let her play on my phone until the time was over and it was time for her group to move onto the next thing.

I was soooooooooooo utterly happy with the way things turned out, and I KNOW that the kids had a great time!    Throughout the whole thing, a couple of parents trickled in to watch their kids or see how the Halloween party was going.  Everyone was snapping pictures of kids running around and having fun.  One of my biggest regrets, though, was that we didn’t take very many pictures.    Both of us were just too busy to do that.  I managed to walk around and snap a few quick pictures, but all-in-all I wish we could have gotten more! 

After the kids went home (loaded with sugar….I’m sure the parents just LOVED us ) and we cleaned up, I felt drained.  It had been a looooooooong day, and it honestly felt like a burden had been lifted from my shoulders.  After the clean up, we sat around and talked a bit in the gym while Ian and I divided up the money.  Everyone was able to get paid for their supplies, and we even had a surplus, so we refunded everyone for their lunch.  Hurray!  After that, everyone went their separate ways.  Melissa came back to our house to help us unload all of the stuff and ate dinner with us.  Ian and I curled up into bed and were probably sound asleep by 10:30.  That’s the earliest either of us has been to bed in who knows when!! 

In the week since, I’ve been asked if I’ll have the party again next year.  I didn’t have the heart to tell the person that I might not be here next year, but if I do stay, I’ll definitely have the party again.  It was just too much fun for the kids to not do it again!!