Halloween and Thanksgiving... sort of.

October and November passed by so quickly. My family always says, right after Halloween it's one holiday after another. Even in Japan, this is not an exception.

As usual, I held a Halloween Party in the Dormitory of the university. This year, I did not think I was going to be able to secure this room to throw the party, since all the lab members who use to live in the Dormitory had graduated or returned from their exchange program. Luckily, another international student was really kind and helped me quite a bit for setting up this party. For that reason, rather than it just being my lab members, we had other international students as well as domestic students. Even some undergraduate students offered to help me out, which was really appreciated when the party happened.

Thank goodness my family sent me Halloween decorations and candy, otherwise it would have been a little disappointing. The decorations I had bought the year before were thrown away when my lab members did the yearly "Osouji - Cleanup". Also as usual, a lot more people came than what is expected. I was estimating around 20-30 people and close to 40-50 came by the end of the night. I think it's because word of mouth travels much faster than e-mail. But, I think it is always a good case for international students and domestic students to get an opportunity to interact. If there were no such events, I honestly do not think they would ever try to talk to each other. Plus, the games were quite entertaining (though hard to organize) with many people:

 The result was good, but next time I think I will have to get a megaphone in order for people to hear me. It's hard to organize large events when your voice does not carry.(If anyone wants me not to use their picture, let me know and I will take it down).


After this party, the following weekend, I attended a part time job held in Kita-Kyushu for an international conference. It was a good experience, but the first day I went the train was delayed! It was quite terrible being late for such an important conference, so I felt awful. Luckily, since it was beyond our control, the teachers were not too unhappy with me and the other student who also had to ride the same train.

I didn't take any photos at the conference itself, but I took some photos of some famous places in Kitakyushu. My favorite are the statues at the Kokura station of famous manga characters.

Sadly, there was no Thanksgiving dinner for me! Instead, during the week of Thanksgiving I attended a Hakata-ori exhibition with a friend. Hakata-ori, or Hakata weaving is a famous textile weaving in Fukuoka (http://www.kimono.or.jp/dictionary/eng/hakataori.html). They are most famous for making obi, or belts, for Kabuki actors. Since I did weaving during college, to be able to see such an exhibition was very exciting for me. Sadly, due to privacy policies, I was unable to take pictures of the weavings, other than the temple where the exhibition was being held.

My next post will be about Christmas and the New Years season! Quite a few good (and bad) things happened, so it may be an interesting post.