I'm Jack Skellington: The Pumpkin King

As parents back home prepare for their children to become geeked out on sugar for the next week, and entitled twenty-somethings don outrageously offensive costumes, I sit in front of my computer to type this blog post. If you haven’t figured out by the title or my leading sentence, this post will be about my first Halloween in Japan.

Now, Halloween, as you may know is a fairly “Western” holiday with roots dating back several hundred years. It may come as no surprise that Halloween’s Celtic roots have little to nothing to do with the Eastern religions of this side of the world. That, however, doesn’t stop the Japanese from celebrating. In recent years, Japan has been slowly picking up some of the traditions that come along with the sugar-laden fall festival.

On Saturday afternoon, I went into town for the annual Shiojiri Halloween Event. Now, unlike in the states, where most towns have some sort of event, this is not the case in Japan. My town just happens to be one that does. Every year, Shiojiri puts on a Halloween event that brings the town together for a few hours.

Town flyer for event... I think

Imagine a family-friendly Halloween festival in Somewhereville, U.S.A. with costumes, trick-or treating, face painting, stale popcorn, and a bunch of runny noses. Now, just replace the citizens of Somewhereville with young Japanese families, and there you have it. For those of you with limited imaginations, the following picture encompasses the whole festival within a few hundred pixels.

View of festivities from SkyBridge

This event took place in the afternoon, and was heavily geared towards children and their families, but as a resident foreigner teaching English, I figured I’d make an appearance to see some of the kids’ get-ups and to show some face for the higher-ups. The elementary kids were just too cute for words, and I enjoyed seeing people that I knew.

After my cameo at the town festival, I was headed off to the main event: The Ultimate Halloween 2013. My Shio-bestie, the lovely Miss Karen, and I decided that it would be fun to visit Nagoya City for a huge Halloween party that some of the other Nagano JETs were going to attend. We made arrangements to catch the highway bus in the afternoon, and made it to downtown Nagoya by the early evening.

"The price is five dollars a turn, my friend. You gettin' your ride on, or what"
"Aww yeah, boy."

We were going to a big Halloween party in a big city, and we were only staying one night. You can bet your bottom dollar that  we didn’t stay at no Hilton. Our hotel was the Nagoya Sun Hotel, and for about 100USD per night in the heart of a huge city, you really couldn’t beat that price. It was conveniently located, affordable, but above all, it was real.

Realness: House quality carpet in an elevator the size of a coat closet.

Realness: Cigarette burns on the floor of hotel room

Realness: Soap/shampoo/conditioner dispenser- very gym locker room

So, at the last minute, I assembled a costume that comprised of a skeleton hoodie, some sweat pants, and a little too much eye make-up. I wanted to go as “The Walking Dread” or “The UnDread,” or something like that, but it didn’t translate too well. With my hood on, I looked like a sociopathic killer straight out of an Investigation Discovery show, but with the hood off, I looked like a wannabe emo-drag queen who looked like they missed the mark on both accounts.

See what I mean?

Emo drag queen?

The costume wasn’t really that important anyway. At least, that’s what people with half-baked costumes like mine always say. What I enjoyed about the night was hanging out with Karen, and doing some intense people-watching. It was quite the sight. There were even a few times where I was around so many foreigners that I forgot I was in Japan. It was really refreshing. It didn’t take long to be brought back to reality, though.

The most interesting spot of the night was a gay bar called the Ragglian Cafe. It was included with our wristband, and it was by far the most unique of the eight clubs we popped in. It was small, crammed, and and uncomfortably hot, but the sights and sounds were vivid enough that I could almost do an entire post on it alone.

Highlights:

1) PG-13 version of a drag show with Elmo dancing on stage and

2) Taking a picture with Ms. Makudo (short for Makudonarudo- Japanese McDonald’s)

Hot, period...

...Mess, period.

On Sunday, we woke up extra early and decided to seize the morning. While everyone else was either catching the first train back to Nagano or catching up on their beauty sleep, Karen and I headed out on a walk to see Nagoya Castle Park. Since we had a bit of time before we had to catch the bus back home, we figured it was worth seeing the castle before we left.

Just outside the castle grounds

Mosaic of Nagoya Castle

The castle layout

The castle, proper

Restoration of one of the rooms

Staircase

Nagoya from castle observation deck

Being in the big city was a bit overwhelming, but at the same time, it was refreshing. It made me think of Houston and all the people I left back home. Even though we spent less than 24 hours in Nagoya, I saw enough to know that I would like to go back and visit someday. Only next time I go, I would like to be dressed as myself.

Nagoya Castle and the Dreaded Gaijin