Halloween and Sapporo HAJET party

To the confusion of everyone outside of Wassamu, it was Halloween today!

Pumpkins everywhere, and the orange kind, too! I've only ever seen the green ones in the stores, so maybe they grow these especially for Halloween?

A lot of places in Japan don't celebrate Halloween at all, but our town is known for its pumpkins. 

These appear to be children's submissions of mascot character designs.

There were some people in costumes. I saw three little girls all dressed as the bunny cop from Zootopia, a little Snow White, and a man dressed as Dracula. There were a lot of people just wearing generic Halloween things, like Jack-o-lantern headbands or stickers. They decided I wasn't Halloweenie enough so they stuck some on my face.

I left them on all day.

It felt a little strange to have a Halloween event in the morning, especially when it was so sunny and hot. I couldn't stay long though, because I had to take the bus to Sapporo. I stayed long enough to carve a pumpkin, though.

 I saw this statue in Sapporo. The placard only said "hope".

Chou koukou kyuu no kibou.

 And here's a statue of Billiken that was outside a store. A god of luck, he's a mascot of Osaka, but he was actually created by Florence Pretz, an American artist in 1908. It is said he was named after the American president William Taft.

To buy a Billiken statue is said to give luck, but to receive one as a gift gives even better luck.

There was an Oktoberfest German market and beer garden by the Sapporo TV tower. I didn't even know it would be there. I just got lucky, I guess.

 I bought a sausage with mustard and sauerkraut.

 There was also bungee jumping from the TV tower.

 And here's the TV tower's mascot, TV Daddy. (Terebi Tou-san)

I met up with Natalie, Sophia, Carmen, and Gloria, some of the girls from Vancouver who were also coming for the party. Natalie took us to a cool place, an former apartment that now has little shops in the rooms. There were little art studios and cafes. It was really neat, but photographs weren't allowed.

We also passed by this place, perfect for Lauren.

This lamp shop that I thought was a vape store or something at first.

And a clothing store with these very... fashionable jackets in the window.

HAJET is the Hokkaido Association for Japan Exchange and Teaching. They throw parties for fundraising several times a year and do bakesales, book exchanges, and English camps. They threw welcome parties during the past month for various areas in Hokkaido. This is the one I decided to go to. It helped that it wasn't literal camping. Like, in tents. No thanks to that.

Costco pizza. A rare treat around these parts.

And leafy green salad. I ate two and a half plates of salad.

It was crowded!

After the party I went for some karaoke with the girls. We were just in a bar instead of a proper karaoke place, so when another group of Japanese guys came in, we got to hear each other sing. It was a long day, but lots of fun.