Halloween and the Jazz Fest

So, I haven't written yet about the Hokkaido part of the trip with Guillaume, and I promise that I will, but in the meantime, other things have been going on!

First, there was Halloween. There was a Halloween party at the bar by Yamasa, and I went, but I unfortunately had to go off and have a headache for the day, so I couldn't bring myself to dress up (or even stay after 10 PM). It was fun, though, and there were some amazing costumes, but I unfortunately took no pictures. :-(

Then Sunday, on actual Halloween day, a bunch of us got together for a Halloween karaoke. It was super fun, and I actually dressed up this time!

I was a thug, and Martin was a mime!

Lauren dressed up as sort of deadish Little Red Riding Hood - her costume was absolutely AMAZING! She looked totally awesome. It made me wish I were good at costume making.

Daniel wore a fun Rilakuma hat, and Alexis unfortunately got sick and couldn't go, so she didn't get to see it. :-( She would have loved it, I think.

Vanessa and Stephen also came, though they didn't dress up. Sadness.

Neither did Wooreeh and Tan.

It was super fun. And then last weekend was the Okazaki Jazz Festival (Jazz Street), and I went on Sunday with Sandra and Carla. One of the students with whom Carla and I do French conversation gave us the tickets for free (otherwise 4000 whole yen) - super nice!

Super fun times, even though neither Carla or I are huge fans of jazz. The first concert we went to was actually in a Buddhist temple, which was an interesting experience. The second concert we went to was at the outdoor Noh theatre by the Okazaki Castle.

On our way over to the castle area, we saw a Japanese couple that had just gotten married, and they were in traditional Japanese wedding garb. It was the first time I had seen that, and I was impressed. The bride's little head thing was especially awesome.

Then there were tons of people and lots of things going on over by the castle area as well.

Thiss fun little bear/lion/cute thing was just walking around randomly. I have NO clue what he was doing, but I of course had to get a picture with him.

After the Noh theatre concert (which was actually quite good - the trumpeter reminded me of Guillaume's dad, and he had a fun story for every song they played. They also played more be-boppy tunes than jazz tunes, so I was into it!), we got to take a picture with some dudes dressed up as samurai! One of the dudes let me hold his sword, and I was a little unsure as to what to do with it.

The last concert was in the library, and even though the band was super energetic, we found ourselves falling asleepish. It's crazy how tiring watching jazz concerts can be.

Other than that, well, we had a first test of the term a little while ago, and I did super good, with only two small, slightly idiotic mistakes. Today we had our first talking test, and I have to say, I'm not feeling nearly as confident about that. Then this past Friday I started a new job in Yahagi, and I think it is going to be good. I have the CUTEST little Japanse girl twins in one of the classes.

Times have been good, though because I work Monday to Saturday, I find that I'm not having as much time as I'd like to really explore Japan. Luckily, I'm here for several more months!

And this weekend, I promise, I'll write all about Hokkaido. It was SO BEAUTIFUL there, and I'm therefore having trouble deciding which pictures to post.