Halloween!!!!!!

I've had a ton of Halloween lessons and activities going on this past week! It's been wild fun, but wicked exhausting!

Japan doesn't really celebrate Halloween. They know what it is, but don't do anything special for it besides maybe a little decoration. Therefore, I decided to bring Halloween to them at school.

First I had halloween lessons with my preschools. They are sooo adorable! Like last year, I had one class make cat masks and we took a group picture. For the other classes, we learned words like "Black Cat", "Pumpkin", "Ghost", etc. and played various games. So fun!




For elementary school, I wore my Tinker Bell outfit to school for the whole day. I can't tell you how many teachers and kids I surprised. The looks on their faces were pretty priceless! During class, I did a powerpoint presentation about Halloween in America. Then we played games.

The first game involved putting your hand in black mystery boxes, which had different "body parts" inside. Of course, they weren't really body parts, but different food items with the same texture as follows:

eye balls- round taro (sato imo)
tongue- devils tongue (konyaku)
ears- bamboo shoots (take no ko)
fingers- sausages
toes- ginko nuts (ginan)
hair- bean noodles (haru same)
nose- jello (konyaku zeri)

The kids were pretty grossed out touching them. They had to guess what the body parts really were and write their guesses down. Some of them had a pretty difficult time guessing!



The second game was a toilet paper mummy wrapping contest. First team to finish wrapping a mummy won. Got some great pictures this way!



On Friday I went trick or treating with a bunch of cute little kids dressed up as witches and pumpkins. Since Japan doesn't really do trick or treating, the instructor of a private English tutoring school organized a trick or treating route to a bunch of stores along a road in Hitoyoshi. Each store gave a package of treats to the kids for them to divide before they went home. It was a nice idea, but the road chosen was way too busy with cars! I spent half the time fearing one of the kids was going to get run over. But the kids got a lot of treats to bring home, so I'm glad I got to help out. I was the only one who wasn't in a witch costume:P

After the trick or treating event, I went to a Halloween party at Amanda's house. It was pretty fun, but I was sooo exhausted the next day. I really don't like staying up all night!

tweets

車を売りましたよ。売れない恐れがあったけど、買い方といい折衷できました。運転できないと不便な時が確かにあるんだけど、自転車だけで通勤していると健康にいいしガスの料金とか貯金できるし、それにだれかがどこかに乗せてもらうといい話もできる。最初心配していたけど、今は車がないほうがずっといいと感じっている。


I sold my car. I was scared for a while when it looked like the buyer was backing out, but we were able to work out a good negotiation.
By commuting to school by bike, I keep healthy, save on gas, and can have good conversations with people who give me rides on occasion. Although i worried about whether I could get by without a car at first, now I think it's so much better not having a car.


今、物販の話です。東京の青年団全国大会に行けるためにジュースやそばなどの商品をたくさん売れないといけないらしい。販売はいやだなぁ！でも、しょうがないからする。


Now my young adult group is talking about fundraising by selling goods. In order for us to go to Tokyo for the national culture festival dance competition, we have to sell things like juice and soba. I hate fundraising! But I guess I have no choice . . .





岡原小学校で今年の運動会を見ている。前の生徒が私の名前を覚えて声をかけてくれて嬉しいわ。


Now I'm watching Okaharu Elementary's sports day. The kids remember my name and call on me all the time! It makes me happy.



後期斉唱を歌った時にちょっと泣いちゃった。岡原と上小学校の子どもと先生たちをずっと忘れられない。

When the kids sang the Okaharu school song, I got a bit teary and nostalgic for the "old" days. I don't think I can ever forget the kids at ue and okaharu elementary.