Trick or Treat

So my favorite holiday, Halloween, has come and passed. I feel as beat down and defeated (in a good way) as I always do after a weekend of all-night fun.

This year, Nat and I celebrated Halloween in Okayama. We dressed up as The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood from the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly). For a cowboy costume, I thought that they were really good. In a country where costumes are hard to come by, I feel like we ended up having the best costume we've had in years. It didn't feel cheap nor did it look store bought. It almost looked like something a real cowboy would wear. It was a bit of an adventure trying to find all of the stuff needed but in the end it paid off. The cowboy hats were the hardest to find and also the most expensive, but they turned out well for us. We also scored two pretty sweet Panchos. Throw in some Daiso revolvers and we had ourselves a pretty good costume.

Besides our costumes, this year's Halloween was as fun as ever. We went out to Okayama on Saturday and had ourselves a pretty good time. We checked out the local foreigner bar, Pinball, and then we went dancing at one of Okayama's only dance clubs, Matador. It was actually kind of strange as not that many people were dressed up. Usually, in America, seeing a cowboy in October is nothing special but over here in Japan, we were dropping jaws left and right. I think our revolvers put some real fear into people, especially the clerk at McDonald's. She couldn't stop staring at our guns and seemed a bit nervous. Either way, McDonald's is no fit place for a Cowboy to rob. We usually aim for banks. However, I rather liked the fact that hardly anybody was dressed up. We got to interact with some regular Japanese people in a way that wouldn't have been possible if Halloween costumes were a more common occurrence in Japan.

The places that we went to were pretty cool. I mean, Okayama is a small place so beggars can't be choosers. Pinball was one of the only places filled costume clad party-ers. Costumes of note included Mrs. Potato Head, Captain Jack Sparrow, Boba Fett, Robin Hood, Afro Samurai and Justin Timberlake (with his dick in a box of course). Although the costumes were nice, this was one of the areas that Japan received a lower grade on as far as Halloween celebrations are concerned. The costumes are on another level back home. But that's okay, it was still a blast! After Pinball, we headed to Matador for some dancing. Nothing crazy there, just a good old fashioned Halloween dance party. On the way home (early in the morning), one of the best parts was being drunk on my bike and shooting at unassuming pedestrians. I have a new found respect for a Cowboy's ability to aim and ride a horse at the same time.

Sunday night's celebrations were even better. Although almost nobody was dressed up in Okayama, we ended up having an even better time. We were with a smaller group of friends (Gene; horse, Yui; peruvian, Tim; ash, and Melinda; pikachu), so we were able to do a lot more talking and just general building up of the Halloween madness. We went to a Spanish restaurant and had some delicious Tapas. Afterwards, it was hilarious to watch Gene (in his horse head costume) umm...horse around. We also went to a really nice reggae bar, played some drinking games, and topped off the night with a round of Karaoke.

So overall, it was a really good time. I can't wait to see what next year's Halloween will bring. In the meantime though, I've got follow up training to attend to and then a 3 day weekend. What should we do? too many things to choose from.