Tuesday At Takanan

I cannot believe how fast time is flying. Halloween is on Friday and then... November? Already?

To celebrate the swiftly passing season, I hosted the first of the several upcoming Halloween parties (with the Harima East High School English club) yesterday afternoon. It turned out to be a lot of fun! Some of the girls wore full-on character costumes (had a Stitch, a Winnie the Pooh and a few witches) and we kicked off the party with bobbing for persimmons. Kaki (as we call them here) are a lot cheaper than apples, and the game has the same effect...although I got talked into participating and probably could have gone as Carrie (rather than a witch) after my mascara smeared. Blah.

We also did a mummy race (with toilet paper), a donut-eating competition, ate way too much candy and listened to a Halloween music mix I made. The kids sort of brought too much food to snack on (in addition to the candy we provided), so we ended up staying a lot longer than usual so they could finish at least some of the massive piles of chips, popcorn, cookies and candy spanning across several tables, but it was OK. I've also noticed I am starting to get to know the girls (um, we only have girls in our club) better and really have fun with them, too. That being said, it still shocks me how different the student culture is from my regular school. At one point, my coworker and I were doing the “Casper Cha-Cha” with one kid and turned around to see them passing cookies with their mouths. That definitely wouldn't happen at Takanan.

So I think I've mentioned this, but I’ve also been getting into the bad routine of taking a nap after school and then staying up way too late recently. Well, I fell victim to my habit again when I got home from the party yesterday evening, completely dozing off for a few hours while I was reading the news online. I was definitely tired after the weekend, so I probably needed the extra Z's, but to work off some of the post-nap energy (which always follows...), I decided to go for a little bit longer run.

I took a random path this time (still along lit streets) and stopped at the both the used clothing store and the new shopping mall along the way. I didn’t have any money with me, but I found everything I need for my Halloween costume on the trip to the reuse store (score!) and was utterly amazed by the new mall by my house! I knew we were getting a Max Value (large grocery store "big-box style" chain) in place of where the Carre Four (like a French Walmart) used to be, but I had no idea we'd get a whole mall with it! There's even a cheap fruit, veggies & wine shop and a big Blockbuster/Tsutaiya-type rental shop.

I have class soon, but I am dreading walking through the cooridors to get to my classroom :-p One of the factories near our school is burning chemicals and it's emitting this awful, rotten egg-like smell. Not quite the wafting chocolate aromas that came from the Malt-O-Meal plant during college...