Halloween in Tokyo!

oh, scary.

Halloween in Tokyo was a weird continuation of three or four days here in Tokyo.
It was a new experience that I couldnt possibly neglect to not write about.

I've learned a couple things about how Japanese people celebrate Halloween.
I could spot the similarities with how Malaysians celebrate Christmas/ Chinese New Year the way Japan celebrates Halloween.
Perhaps this is a poor comparison because Halloween is considered a smaller if not less significant holiday next to the apparent birth of Jesus Christ and the end of the 365 days that one may call a year.
Be that as it may; I was still amused at the little quirks about Japan that I'm glad I still can find given I've been here almost 8 months now.


1) No one ever celebrates the holiday for its intended purposes.

In Malaysia, Halloween was just an excuse to eat candy and watch scary movies.
Sure, that's the same worldwide but one would expect Halloween parties, and Trick or Treating for the purpose of acquiring one's candy.

I was impressed with the Japanese and their efforts in dressing up.
Halloween is the one day that everyone of any age, gender, and race can be entitled to play dress up.
However in Japan, the dressing up was literally dragged on for a whole week.
It was a Thursday if I'm not mistaken where I was taking the train home to find that I'm the only one dressed in 'proper attire', and everyone else in full-clad costume, hair, and make up.

Harajuku is definitely one of the places where it seems like Halloween is going on all year round but in this case, it looked like Halloween had too much candy and threw up all over the place.
It was really interesting to see how many girls dressed up as sexy pumpkins as opposed to the slutty playboy bunny or nurse that one would expect at a typical Halloween party.
Oh. Another thing that is acceptable in Halloween- the color orange.


2) DisneyJapan is making a shit load of cash

aww isn't that adorable.. How much do you think each one cost Disney to make?

this is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween..

It's rather sickening.
All the exchange students were planning on visiting DisneyLand because it was Halloween themed.
However; the Japanese girls somehow found about this plan and ended up organizing it on behalf of the pathetic gaijin tachi wachi.
So apparently celebrating Halloween is to go to Disneyland and spend money you don't have on toys and cookies that are 'totemo kawaii'.
We all know that when those Japanese girls whip out the kawaii word it takes a whole lot of effort to think of that adjective, thus leaving you with absolutely no choice but to pay 5000yen to sit in a couple of rides in the middle of a typhoon.
...Bazinga.

from left: Haruka, Olivia, Manon, Erisa, Me, Minami

the ghost house that I didn't enter into- look at that line.

ANYWAY. :P
We all went to DisneyLand despite the typhoon that hit Tokyo.
Despite the fact that it was so cold I could not feel my toes or fingers for the whole day.
Going to Disneyland on the 28th (Thursday), which is a weekday.
People work on weekdays so therefore, no one should be able to bring their kids to Disneyland BUT...
I was wrong.

to the very right: Raincoats AND umbrellas. They are smart. Our efforts with relying on the mighty umbrella were clearly in vain when we lost feeling in our limbs from the cold.

Japanese people are so crazy.
I thought I was insane for actually agreeing to still go to Disneyland despite the typhoon,
but there were families, grandparents and children, all in Disneyland sporting Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse ponchos and complaining that it was "samui" (cold).
I decided to go to Disney because I have such little time left in Tokyo, I didn't want to let the weather get in the way of what I wanted to do with friends.
However these people live here! You would think that coming back next year, or maybe the next day would be ideal.

I can never imagine my own grandmother ever stepping outdoors in a typhoon.
Ever. Let alone going to Disneyland.
Japanese old people are very adventurous. LOL, oh I cant believe I just said typed that.
Should I go back and delete?
I should. I will later. :)

つまり。(in conclusion.)

Disney makes a shit load of cash, because even when there's a typhoon, heck, even if the end of the world was supposedly tomorrow, these people would still wake up at the crack of dawn, and line up outside those ticket barriers to get their load of Mickey Mouse.
Amazing.


3) On Halloween itself- no one actually celebrates.

"MOM! It's HALLOWEEN...Can I please go to the Pokemon Center and play games with the other kids?"

Waking up on Halloween was exciting because I had planned to go to Yokohama with my friend Olivia,
and we were going to hunt for good pumpkin pie.
The ones with marshmallows on top.
Knowing how the Japanese went OTT with all their costumes before actual Halloween,
I was really excited to see everyone all dressed up, out and about town showing off their ideas via clothes and extra cash they could afford to spend.

at least the Purikura booths had the decency to add lil' ghosts for Halloween! :)

But disappointment once again slapped me in the face (twice), and I was shocked to see that no one dressed up.
Not even a single Mickey mouse headband, or a little witch hat.
Zip. Nada.

Oh. And PumpkinPieHunting was a HUGE letdown too.
The store which I thought would at least have good pumpkin pie turned out to look disgusting that I wasn't even slightly tempted to purchase it.
Since when did pumpkin filling become mustard yellow to mimic the color of my school's blazer?
And since when did pumpkin pie not have a disgusting dollop of marshmallow whipped cream on top?
Needless to say, we had apple pie instead.


Halloween music wasn't even playing in stores, and I just couldn't fathom as to the reason WHY.
In Malaysia, even after a week of Christmas, songs about reindeers and Santa would still be blasting through the speakers.
However come mid January, expect lots of Chinese NY music. This time, all about money and red packets and food. :P


I guess there are differences and similarities with the way people would celebrate Halloween;
but when I was younger, I can vividly remember stuffing my face with candy, and running away from black cats because I thought that on Halloween itself all superstitions would come true.
I didn't receive any free candy whatsoever.
My friend and I bought candy.
Yeah.
You heard me.
We paid for our candy.
Sigh..

Granted I didn't dress up, but I am not as bold as people that can dress up in cosplay and walk around in public.
I could have gone as a giraffe though. That would have been interesting.
Or a witch. A slutty nurse, even.
Depends what tickled my fancy but in the end, I just wore whatever was on my bedroom floor :P
However if Japan had any interest in Harry Potter whatsoever, I wouldn't have mind going as a Harry Potter character.

That leaves me the one option of Cho Chang as she is the only Asian to ever grace Harry Potter books.
> < damn.

the bitch is pretty but still- we look nothing alike.

Speaking of which. WHY is there zero HP merchandise here in Japan?

I'm not hinting at all...But I want this as my Christmas gift. Not hinting at all though.

Looking for HP scarves were just about as disappointing as the pumpkin pie hunt.
Not happy with you Japan. Fix this now, immediately.

(Can't believe Akihabara didn't even sell them either! Rage..)

4) I got hit on.
(okay, this is not an observation clearly, this is just what happened on Halloween that I thought worthy of blogging about)


"April, Japanese men would NEVER, EVER approach someone that they didn't know to ask them for their number. Even if they thought that girl was 'kawaii', it is not in the Japanese nature to do that." -quoted by my lovely host mom. (btw, in this case, she really is lovely and I love her to bits. No sarcasm/bazinga intended here.)

Maybe it was Halloween, or perhaps the guy fell down somewhere earlier and hit his head,
but I was hit on by a 30 year old Japanese male for a good half an hour before meeting with another friend in Yokohama.

First the dude came and sat down next to me.
I walked somewhere else, and he still followed me.
After zigzagging my way through the station, I was starting to panic because he would not leave me alone despite my awesome skills of weaving in and out of the huge crowd.

So I moved again- to the front of the koban, (police station), because I thought, 'hey if im standing in front of the police station my chances of getting raped would be bar none to zero.'
The dude followed me to the police station!
Oh My God. He has a brain tumor. I swear.

He told me about how he thought I was so beautiful, and how he could tell straight away that I wasn't Japanese.
To quote exactly; "Your eyes aren't Japanese. I think you have a bit of southeast asian in you. What's your number? Tell me your name, your number."
To this I replied in English, "Oh go away.."

He told me about how he knows that foreigners love sushi and that he would love to bring me to eat sushi some day.
He told me about how my leather jacket showed him that I had good taste in music. (at this point I was literally wtf*cking his method of drawing conclusions on what kind of music people liked by looking at clothing items, but moving on.)

This guy would just NOT leave me alone, at all.
I timed him.
30 minutes, literally.
He left after I flicked my hair in his face numerous times mid sentence. (good thing I haven't decided to cut my hair short just yet.)
I think he got the hint that I was obviously not interested.

I thought that Japanese guys would only have the guts as to touch my ass or my thigh in the trains.
I get that maybe twice a month on average if I'm lucky.
However, to actually approach me and harass me like that? I was so tempted to punch the guy.
Ironically he was twice my height, (a TALL Japanese man, you say? Yeah, I was confused too), so I was too nervous to actually do anything but stand there and stare at my phone.

Twas an interesting Halloween.
A fun one, despite weird guy deciding that sushi was the turnaround for all foreigners to give in to men such as himself, but hey, I learned something. =]

So here's to a great November, and hopefully a nice Christmas and NY's too!
Although feedback has been thoroughly negative about Japanese Christmas...
I'm wondering if I'll find something I'll enjoy about the seasons holidays here in the land of lets-slaughter-whales-but-be-friendly-to-the-environment-by-diving-our-garbage.

All my love always,

April