Halloween

Ok, so let's return to the recent past for a bit and visit Halloween. Usually there's this unofficial party that takes place on the Osaka loop line. Hundreds of merrymakers gather in costume on the platform of Osaka Station, and after partying for a half hour or so, all dive simultaneously into one train. They take this train around the entire loop, getting out at every station to switch cars, causing great confusion to the Japanese people riding the train, who barely have any idea what Halloween is at all.

Anyway, it seems like it might still be a cool idea, until you consider the number of participants. I went last year, and the train cars were completely packed. Normal Japanese people trying to go about their lives were anywhere from simply annoyed to genuinely freaked out by all these foreigners in outrageous costumes (to be fair, quite a few Japanese people participated too) and this detracted a lot from the fun. With about 1/4 the number of people, I think it might actually be fairly cool and not really get in people's way too much, but it's just gotten way out of control.

This is what it looked like last year:



This year, however, the Osaka police cracked down on the party, refusing to let the partiers onto the trains and threatening to arrest people. This was well-publicized ahead of time, and consequently I don't know anyone who went this year. So we must bid sayonara to the tradition of the loop line party.

Instead, I went to a house-rewarming party chez my friend Ben, who just returned to Japan. Since it was Halloween I felt obligated to take my way-cool hand-made party-mask-to-end-all-party-masks that Yuki gave me from her trip to Italy. We ended up meeting up with some friends in Umeda afterwards and dancing all night at a place called Club Noon, which was decidedly NOT a Halloween party, although a bunch of people in our group did in fact come in costume, which attracted quite a bit of attention from the hundred or so "normal" people there. Crazy gaijin.

And here come the pics - consider this my penance for such wordy posts this week. ;)



Party at Ben's house. But... where's Ben? He kind of vanished as soon as the party started...



"Drink from the orange bottle and the story ends. You go home, get a good night's sleep, you wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

"Drink from the violet bottle, and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."



Haha... it's been so long since I've had to correct red-eye on TWO people in a picture.



"Arr, that's quite a cutlass ye got thar, what ye need is a good scabbard!"



"I think carefully before acting rashly."
"Sound advice."



"Daahling, aren't we FABulous?"



Awww... too cute for words.

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And finally, here is a natsukashii shot from last Halloween. I had been working on hair for the costume, but I didn't finish it in time, and thus, out of probably 150 people I talked to, only two knew what I was supposed to be (hint: look at what I'm holding in my hand).