"This is Halloween! This is Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!"

10/29/2016- 10/30/2016
You better be singing that title!

This weekend we went to a Halloween party in Koriyama, Fukushima. I had a bunkasai (culture festival) at my school the day of. At the Bunkasai, I had a Halloween bulletin board and a carved pumpkin displayed. I really felt like part of the school and not a temporary outsider. Pictures of me were also featured in the school slide show. It was really neat. It gave me feels.

I drove straight from work to Koriyama in order to make it to the party in time. It started at someone’s apartment (where all the photos were taken) and then the party moved to a local club that was having a Halloween party for foreigners.

For my costume I went as Sexy No-Face/Kao-Nashi/カオナシ.

Jocelyn went as a female Gerard Way (lead singer of My Chemical Romance.)

Felipe went as a Sokka (character from Avatar the Last Airbender.)

Cormac went as Piko-Taro (of the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen fame.)

John went as Severus Snape, but when I first saw him I thought he was Dorian Gray.

 It was hopping! I danced the night away (and woke up paying for it cuz I’m not a spring chicken anymore.) Super fun!

We woke up the next morning, and got ready to head back home. I decided to spend my day channeling Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovette. I dont get to wear my hair (or my crazy) this way often, so I had some fun with it. Check out the doll earrings!

After getting back from the Halloween party we (Cormac, Felipe and I) went to a park in Fukushima city near my friend’s apartment. It was a beautiful hill, and there were great views of the city on all sides.

We found a bench on springs and the three of us decided to see how far we could rock it back and forth. No adults to be found here.

There were a few little shrines up at the top of the hill. One had a little Daruma inside. The tree next to the shrine was forming around a rock, which I thought was cool.

Beautiful view of Fukushima City.

We made it to the top of the hill and walked around for a long while. We came down on the opposite side of the hill from where we went up, so it took us a while of pleasant walking to make our way back. It was getting pretty dark by the time we returned. We found a few little shrines around the base of the hill.

We then went back to my friend’s apartment to watch some horror movies (Paranormal Activities 3, and Insidious) which we did find scary (even though I had already seen both, but had forgotten most of it) and it was the first time in years that I have legit screamed during a horror movie. Two of us were screaming like children, and one was laughing at the screamers. I’ll leave it to your imagination who was who. I later drove back to Minamisoma.

First time to Koriyama, Fukushima!

I went to Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture a few weeks ago (October 8-9, 2016.) I went in search of a Halloween Costume with some friends, Jocelyn and Cormac. I met the two of them in Koriyama where we walked around the city for a bit, and did a little shopping. We went to the train station and went to some anime store. I bought a couple of those amazing plastic folders that are so popular in Japan. I bought two that were Cardcaptor Sakura themed and one that was from an anime called The Shironeko Project, although I’ve never seen it. It looked cute, so I bought it. It is also where I bought my office flair of “Golden Rockstar Medici” from a Gachapon machine.

After the anime store we decided to go check out the northern Hard Off thrift store in Koriyama to search for our Halloween costumes. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but that was ok. Cormac was the only one to find something to contribute towards his costume. Instead I bought a metric butt-ton of cds for my car. I had been listening to the same three cds in my car for the past two months and I had enough. So, I found the dollar bin of cds and went to town. Now I feel joy while driving again. It’s great!

After that, we had some time to kill so we went to a large park in the city called Kaiseizan Park They had a humongous jungle gym to climb on in the children’s playground, so naturally I raced Cormac to the top, he won cuz I chickened out a bit because it was so tall, and Jocelyn took a nice picture.

There is also a large pond in the middle of the park, and we took some time walking around it and over a bridge that crossed the pond at one end. There was also a large statue that we went to see, it was quite dark by this time, so our pictures weren’t great.

I looked across the street from the park and noticed a temple, so we walked over and walked around there. It was closed, but there were still people walking in and out of it. We took some pictures, all of which had a green tinge because of the lighting. It was really neat, but our pictures turned out a little spooky. But it was fun anyways.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures from that evening. The tree looks so spooky!

After this we met some friends and got something to eat and went to a dance club.

I danced for hours until my knees started to give out. It was super fun. After that we crashed at a friend’s house. I really enjoyed my time in Koriyama. I do plan to go back and check out other things the city has to offer.

The next day Cormac and I headed south to a barbeque that a mutual friend of ours was hosting in Nakajima, Fukushima. We made a few stops along the way, including to Jodomatsu Park to the west of Koriyama that had a short, easy hike to some big rocks that had eroded to look like mushrooms (or penises.) It was beautiful. There were also some paths in the park that went along some beautiful ponds. We wasted some time there and then headed to the party in Nakajima.

The park you must pass through to get to the hiking trail.

Map of the area.

The hiking trail to the Mushroom Rocks.

The Mushroom Rocks.

The various ponds nearby.

Wandering around the hills above the Mushroom Rocks, we found more rocks with kanji and other pictures carved onto them. Look closely! I've heard they have historical significance, but I'm not entirely sure.

This is after we got back to the car and were driving towards the barbeque. Beautiful rice fields all around!

This one you can see the harvested rice piled up on sticks to dry.

Everyone at the party brought their own meat to the barbeque and we all sampled all the meats that everyone brought. It was delicious.

In the next room there was a television playing a queue of music from Youtube, and I danced the night away again, completely surprised that I once again had energy to do so. At the end of the night there were still maybe… 20 people in the house, so we all just found our own section of floor and a blanket and crashed. It was like the college life that I never got to experience cuz I was too busy being studious. Better late than never.

The next day I drove back to Fukushima City, and then to Minamisoma. Not much to say about that other than it took about five hours. It was a super fun weekend where I met lots of nice, new people and had some adventures.