Happy Halloween!

Tonight there are hundreds of ghosts, witches, skeletons, clowns, cowboys, and various other goblins making a heck of a lot of noise walking up our street. Enough to wake the dead. Halloween is a huge deal here. Thankfully the ghoulish crowd is not stopping at our front door. There are stations set up outside in front of apartment buildings, where the neighbors combine and give away their obscene amounts of candy. I heard a rumor that the kids don't even have to say, "Trick or Treat!" There's just a scrum for candy. That may or may not be true. I won't go out to find out for myself, thanks. I am a Halloween Scrooge. It comes from teaching in a middle school and observing how the holiday eats up 2 days of meaningful instruction. On Halloween itself, the kids are too excited about going trick-or-treating to even sit still. The day after Halloween, the kids are exhausted PLUS buzzing on a prolonged sugar high. You can imagine how much learning goes on then...bah humbug.


Christmas is another interesting holiday in Japan. This Buddist, Shinto, Confusian country celebrates Christmas by exchanging gifts and eating Christmas cake. They also eat chicken at Christmas (no taste for turkey) so KFC does a booming business. I hear that the city will be decorated for Christmas. Fascinating.


This weekend we enjoyed a typhoon, and a couple of the most beautiful days we've had here. On Saturday, we went to our favorite sushi place.





We call it "conveyor belt sushi" for as you can see, the chef is placing another plate on the belt that keeps movin past. When you see something that you want, you take it. Each plate is colored differently, according to price. At the end of your meal, they come and add up your stack of plates. There is no tipping in Japan. What you see on the bill is what it is. It's very nice, actually. Service is always good. It is expected.