Halloween in Shoto, Part II

Shoto is our small neighborhood in Tokyo. Each year the neighborhood hosts trick-or-treating the weekend before Halloween. This year it was held on October 28th. I was told beforehand that the Japanese kids in the area love this new tradition. I was advised to have at least 1,000 pieces of candy ready to give out. I thought since we're already giving out so much candy, we might as well invite Mia's class to join in the fun. A few mothers and I planned a Halloween Party at our local park. Kids showed up in fabulous costumes and we had pinatas and party favors for them. I was afraid that only a handful of her classmates would show up, but we had 20 families arrive. Here are the vestiges of one of the Halloween pinatas we made for the kids. The kids had never heard of a pinata and it was quite a novelty for them.






Aaron had arrived back from Beijing the day prior. He brought this Chinese dress for Mia. She decided that she wanted to be a Chinese Princess and she choose the little umbrellas to put in her hair.






Rhett was a little bag of bones and I was Anpanman---my favorite Japanese super hero. Anpanman's author dreamed him up during World War II. And I quote, "he became inspired by the idea of Anpanman while struggling to survive as a soldier in World War II. He many times became faced with the prospect of starvation which made him dream about eating a bean-jam filled pastry called Anpan." Here's a few links to illuminate you about Anpanman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpanman
http://www.jamco.or.jp/english/library/animation/an029800.html
http://metropolis.co.jp/biginjapanarchive299/283/biginjapaninc.htm






Our friend Asa dressed up as a ghoulish-looking gal. Her daughter Mayu-chan wore the Ariel costume she made for her.

Aaron, my forever cowboy, wore his usual costume. Note: other than the straw hat and pink Hello Kitty bandanna , he wore this exact outfit on our wedding day...I kid you not.

Some of Mia's pals. Bob the Builder and his sidekick Wendy the Builder and Cinderella too.

Kids in line for the pinata and treat bags. My friend Melissa dressed up as a cow, see her Holstein print dress to the right? She had a great udder that I failed to catch on film.

After the park we went trick-or-treating. Here's Mia and her good friend Maia-chan in front of one of the scarier Halloween houses. And no, we didn't end up giving out 1,000 pieces of candy. More around 600 pieces. Now we just need to off-load the rest to Aaron's work. Halloween was so much fun this year!