Reliving Halloween in Japan

The cultural phenomenon of Japan x Halloween

Check out that ho's sour face on the right. She can't handle me.

I blogged this Halloween costume on my fashion blog, but I believe the entire legend needs re-telling here.

While possessed by an unknown force, I decided that I wanted to be a unicorn for Halloween: this year, next year, and every year after that, so I set about making my own costume to wear to  Halloween parties in Japan.

This is a guide on how, and why, you should experience Halloween in Japan. 

Unicorn loose in the city!

Step 1: Look fabulous

Materials for the costume:

- about 1 yard of faux white fur

-  1 ball of yarn (for the mane and tail)

- cardboard, paper towel roll (for the horn)

- gold ribbon (to wrap around the horn)

I made a pattern for the body from a vest, and the hood from a hooded sweatshirt.  I cut the paper towel roll and shaped it into a horn, then affixed it to the body with a glue gun. I also put cardboard under the horn on the opposite side of the fabric to hold it in place so it would not droop. Nothing worse than a droopy horn.

Accessories:

- white gloves from a vintage store

- white body suit and white leggings from American Apparel

- Flute (to seduce the ladies)

Unicorn on a lonely bridge

Step 2: Fly your ass to Japan 

Japan has the most outrageous Halloween parties in the world. It was not always this way. A few years ago the country had never even heard of Halloween, so the event was only celebrated by English teachers and other expats. Slowly, the trend started catching on.

In 2008, I was in Tokyo for Halloween, and happened to be present for the Yamanote line hijacking. This occurs when a group of drunk foreigners crowd onto one car of the Yamanote train line in Tokyo, and make a huge mess.

I was not present for the actual party, just for the fall out when the authorities broke it up. After someone overheard me speak Japanese, I was approached and interviewed (briefly) by a reporter for NHK. Here is how the interview went:

NHK: What is your costume?

Me: Unicorn
(didn't know how to say this word in Japanese. I basically just sounded it out and added "desu." Real eloquent, my Japanese).

NHK: So, where will you go for Halloween?

Me: Shinjuku ni-chome! (ehem, that's the Gay district, ya'll)

NHK: Oh, why there?

Me: Because gays know how to party~!!!

Alright, I don't think that part made it on the air, but it was a good show for the people standing around watching. Well, in the U.S. the gay neighborhood is always THE place to be for Halloween, (hello, West Hollywood?), but not so in Japan. When I hit up Shinjuku ni-chome  it was dead. Dead. Not one person in a costume. God I hope that has changed, but I bounced from that scene so fast and I was back in Shibuya partying it up. No wonder NHK was confused by my answer.
You gotta trust Japanese people sometimes.

Well, the next year I spent Halloween in Japan, and I did it right: I went to Osaka.

Step 3: Make some friends!

Fortunately for me, I already had some. So I met up with my home-girl (Japanese) in Osaka, and two travel buddies (Australia). Together, we were one extreme foursome.

4 people,  3 countries, 2 languages, one hell of a good time.

Step 4: Get wasted 

Alright, I don't usually advocate bad behavior.
Wait.
Yes I do.
Yes I most certainly do. 

So if you are going to get  drunk on Halloween in Osaka, and my friend, you are going to get drunk on Halloween in Osaka, then the only place to go is the Absinthe Bar. This was once a tiny hole-in-the-wall that was pretty much only frequented by my friends and five other people, but now it is a sprawling bar/lounge/restaurant/nightclub with flame-lite cocktails and yes, absinthe.
I will post again on this legendary absinthe bar....

Here I am, drunk as silly

Step 5: Hijack a stranger's ride

Wait.
Don't do this.
You'll get arrested.
I don't want to be responsible for that.

But do pretend to hijack a bike and take silly photographs on it before the owners realize what you're doing. 

Step 6: Be as nasty as you wanna be

It's Japan.

You can get away with anything. 

Trust me on this one. 

Look at this lewd gesture I'm making. I don't even know what it means.
But it feels like exactly the right thing to do.
At exactly the right time. In exactly the right place.

Happy Halloween! Enjoy some photos of my good times~!

Osaka: 2010

Tokyo: 2008 

Sweet Escape: Chicago Public Library

This past week I returned from a business trip that took me all over the Midwest. Of course, my overly ambitious self planned on trying to make this trip enjoyable and blog-worthy by scheduling graveyard visits and afternoon-teas, but in reality I had time for  none of these things. 

Like most of us, I wish my professional life was as exciting as the fantasy world I create for myself on this blog, but the horrors of business travel never fail to pull me right back into reality: the always turbulent flights over the Rocky Mountains, the hour-long shuttle rides to and from the airport, the awful food options at airports. I just about had enough of it. Until I got to Chicago.

Chicago was at the tail end of my long journey, so I elected to stay the weekend. Good choice, Calliope. Up until this point in my journey, I had done absolutely nothing that I would care to retell on this platform - or even remember (plane sickness, car sickness, work sickness) so I trashed my cemetery and afternoon tea gigs and figured I would just relax in Chicago, not worry about travel blogging.

I took the CTA Blue line into town from the airport, and when I arrived at LaSalle station I was greeted by the magnificent spectacle of the Chicago Public Library.

That's when I realized: I am seriously horny for libraries. 

Like cemeteries, I always seem to end up at a library when I travel. There's just something magical about the architecture, the history, the books, that make me want to seek them out and live in them.
I usually don't plan on visiting a library, but somehow I always end up there. Take Stockholm for instance.
I was so happy to stumble upon this library (well, "stumble upon" is not the right phrase, the Chicago Public Library is so massive you've have to be totally careless to miss it) that I had to blog it. I walked all around the 9 floors, and took some pictures on each one. 

I especially love the art deco accents everywhere. 

The entrance

Second floor balcony

Fiction literature

The 9th Floor glass atrium

Even the bathroom is art deco!

The escalators

The ceiling

Photo Diary: Best of Hawaii

Well, I know my first post on Hawaii was less than glowing, but I did enjoy my time there. Besides, I traveled with my camera-obsessed partner, who took almost 800 pictures in one week. This took some narrowing down.....

Kihei, Maui

So many kinds of Ahi...mmmm

Local fruits at the farmers market

Fried Spam musubi

I don't know these people...

The sunset

Mango, Tamarind, and Guava shaved ice

Local fruits

Gardens near Hana

Ubiquitous palm trees

Honolulu high rises

Honolulu ally

The pink building

Honolulu sky scraper

View from our hotel in Honolulu

Beach somewhere on Oahu

Traditional Japanese meal

Snapshort from Vancouver

Hanging from a tree, Vancouver, Canada

Snapshot from Helsinki

In front of Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral, Helsinki, Finland

Japan Journey 2008

I took this trip to Japan nearly four years ago, but it was so awesome that it really needs a place here on this blog.

At that time, I had already been to Japan about five times, but only to Tokyo and my friend's hometown of Tsukuba (one hour away from Tokyo). At some point, when I was back in American, I noticed myself saying things like, "Oh I love Japan", "Japan is so....," "Japanese people are so...," BUT I hadn't even seen Japan outside of Tokyo!

That's like someone outside the U.S. only visiting New York City and then returning home saying, "I love America," "Americans are so..."

The rest of the US is vastly different from NYC. The culture, climate, and the food can change dramatically from one state to another. To get a good sense of America you've got to travel coast to coast, with some time in the Midwest and definitely the South.

So that is just what I did. I decided to explore as much of Japan as I could with a 30-day JR rail pass (back then it was about 100 yen to the dollar, so it was somewhat affordable). Traveling trough Japan is so much more feasible than trying to cross the U.S. by rail. Japan is a tiny country and the bullet trains are so fast,  I hardly felt like I spent much time on the train at all. Another benefit of traveling by train in Japan is the ability to sample delicious cuisine at  each station, known as ekiben. Let me also just say that this journey was made ten-thousand time easier by Hyperdia, the online timetable for all trains in Japan. Without this website,  my spontaneously-planned trip would not have been possible.

Let's begin!

First Stop: Tokyo

I was already very familiar with Tokyo by the time I made this trip, having been there several times. I spent over a week and a half in Tokyo when I arrived. Mostly, I wanted a chance to visit all of my friends and plan my journey. This is an image of the famous Shibuya Crossing. It never fails to impress tourists with thousands of pedestrians crossing every few minutes.

Second Stop: Osaka 

My next trip was a mere three hours south of Toyko, to the city of Osaka. I had been there once before, but only for a few days. My only memory of Osaka from that first trip was that it rained the entire time, so I never left the home of the family with whom I was staying. This time, I decided to give the city another shot, and really check it out. I stayed with a friend in a sleepy suburn about fourty minutes from the city center by local train.We visted all the typical sites like Amemura and Osaka castle.

My first impression after a week in the city was that, despite being the second largest city in Japan, it is no where near as urban as Tokyo. Writing this entry now, having been to Osaka several times, I have come to have many wonderful memories in this city, mostly because of the great friends I have made.

Third Stop: Hiroshima

I fell in love with Hiroshima from the moment I arrived. I thought this would be a dreary little town with a bomb museum, but oh I was so wrong. Everything wonderful is in Hiroshima. Only a week before I arrived I discovered I had a friend there. She was a former roommate of mine in Los Angeles, but she had since moved back to her hometown of Hiroshima, and was very keen to show me around. We attended a festival at Hiroshima castle, went to Miyajima, ate maple leaves and Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki.

I was so smitten with this city that I think one day I will have to write about it in more detail. It has the charm of a small town, but all the amenities of a big city. This has became my new favorite place in Japan.

Fourth Stop: Fukuoka

Fukuoka is the largest city on the main island of Kyushu, which is the most southern of the four main islands of Japan. Upon first impression, I felt that Fukuoka was a lot like southern California. Despite being October, it was hot and tropical. Palm trees lined both sides of the wide streets, and high rise condominiums looked out over white sandy beaches.

In Fukuoka, I ended up meeting my best friend and travel partner, Danny, from Australia. I will tell that story in another post someday, but the two of us shared many good memories in Fukuoka.

Fifth Stop: Imabari

Imabari is small town located on the northers edge of Shikoku, the second most southern of Japan's four main islands. Although large in size, Shikoku is sparsely populated and very rural. Japanese consider this whole island to be inaka (countryside). When I told my Japanese friends I was going to Shikoku the first question they ask is "why???" which is also accompanied by a look of confusion. I did't bother to tell them I was going to Imabari, because that would have elicited the response, "where's that?"

Well, this was my first real experience in the Japanese countryside. I had a good friend from Tokyo who moved to back to her hometown of Imabari to have a family. Imabari was a charming town, but there was no train or bus (at least that I saw), so we often had to take a taxi, which was inconvenient. Also, I had a difficult time understanding local residents (in Japanese - mind you), especially elderly ones, because they had strong accents.

Sixth Stop: Maizuru

Only a few minutes away from the city of Kyoto, Maizuru is probably also considered inaka by most Japanese. This is a small coastal town with a large port and many fish markets. Again, I would have probably never gone if it were not for a very good friend who lived there. I am truly lucky to have met Japanese people all over the world, and now I can visit them in their hometowns, and experience things many tourists don't get to experience.

Seventh Stop: Kyoto

Speaking of tourists, Kyoto was my second to last stop on this trip, and at this point I was getting really tired of traveling. Packing up my bulging suitcase every few days and moving to the next hostel got old quickly, and I was just not ready for the chaos that ensued in Kyoto.

This is the city that every foreigner imagines when they think of Japan. The temples, the shrines, the geisha, they are all here in Kyoto, along with the thousands of tourists that flock to see them. Seriously, there were more white people in Kyoto than at a suburban mall in Minnesota. Too many white people, if I may say so myself. I was so annoyed by these masses of tourists and their large, clumsy backpacks that I gave up walking on the main streets entirely, and took back roads as often as I could.

Also, the bus system was lousy and expensive in Kyoto. The sites are not very walkable, and I was in no mood to stand on a sweaty bus squeezed in between half the citizens of New Jersey just to take some cheesy photos near a temple. (Can you tell I was in a sour mood?) So I didn't end up seeing much in Kyoto. I mostly slept in the hostel during the day, and headed out a night. I did manage to see the Inari and an awesome cemetery though. 

Eighth Stop: Nagoya

This was the last stop of my journey before heading back to Tokyo to catch my flight home. Nagoya is right in the middle of Osaka and Tokyo, so it makes for a great stop if you really can't sit still on a train for 3 hours. I also had a friend in Nagoya, but at the time I was visiting, he was studying in the U.S., so I ended up hanging out with his mom. I was pretty nervous, because she does not speak  English, and my Japanese is nothing to brag about. Somehow, we managed to have a great time. I ate the famous eel dish, and we visited many of the main attractions in Nagoya.

In all, this whole trip was one of the most memorable I have had in Japan. I checked off three of the four major islands (Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu), and most of the major cities on each island.

Next stop, Hokkaido! (coming soon in 2013?)

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