Minato Mirai Fireworks Grand Finale

And the finale!
Gotta love japanese fireworks.

Fireworks part 2

Here it gets a little fancier.

This weekend I went to see the fireworks over at Minato Mirai (technically, the Kanagawa Shinbun Fireworks). It's the same ones we saw last year from the balcony at IUC--they had a party for the summer students and we crashed it, got to watch the hanabi from up high. But this year they set off the fireworks over a different place in the harbor so it was on the other side of the building from the balcony.
So this year we had to watch down with the commoners (lol). But I went over with J and his mom, it was her last weekend here, and even from the ground the fireworks were absolutely fantastic. And I took videos!
Here's part 1.



There's two more vids of the fireworks, but they were too long, or something, and wouldn't upload for some reason. So I put them on youtube (lol)

(ｰ｡ｰ)ﾌｩ

Boy am I tired!  It's been a long week.  Good, but just really long, mainly cause of 2 things--Metropolis's annual Halloween Glitterball that was on Thursday, and the fact that we're moving to a new office over the weekend.
Which mostly means that our office has been filled with boxes and other crap for days now--empty boxes to pack our stuff in, and boxes of beer, flyers, balloons--you name it--for the Glitterball. Craziness ensues.
So on Thurs, I spent the morning at a press conference for Hellboy 2, which would normally have been kinda meh, whatever (I mean it's not like I've seen the movie)--except that the director, Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) was *super cool*. He was talking about how Hellboy is "autobiographical." lol.

Anyway, he was a total rockstar.
So I got back from the press conference just in time to finish up a few things and then Hiroko and I headed over to Womb in Shibuya to help set up for the party. I swear, when I got there only an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open, and took a look around, it was like "there is no way we're gonna get this ready in time!" Cases of beer stacked 10 boxes high along one wall, folding tables in one corner, a thousand or so gift bags in huge piles.. it was ridiculous! But somehow, miraculously, we got everything set up and even had time to duck into the bathroom and change into our costumes. I was going for a sort of cowgirl theme--found a cheap hat at Tokyu Hands--perhaps embarrassing, but that was the only part of my costume I had to buy.  lol.  That's Hiroko on the left, she dressed up as Yoko Ono ^^

So I was scheduled to work the door handing out glowsticks from 7:30-8:30, but I got drafted into sticking on wristbands right at 7 when the door opened. It was ridiculous.  People had been lining up for a while already, and as soon as they opened the door it was just like the floodgates and all these people came pouring in. I heard later that 20 minutes after the doors opened, the place was at capacity.  And they just kept letting people in. The 3rd and 4th floors were supposed to be reserved for VIPs and special guests, but they ended up having to open those up to everyone cause it was just too crowded.

I mean, it was a lot of fun, and I got to hang out with my friends so I'm definitely glad I went. But--Seriously. Crowded.
So it's not like I stayed out past the last train or anything, but I got home really late. Steve had said it was ok for us to come in late on Friday, like at noon, which was cool, but I still only got to sleep in like an extra hour because I had to go all the way out to frigging Odaiba in the morning. See, we needed a photo from Fuji TV for the terebi article, and sometimes the tv studios get all annoying and for some reason can't/won't send a photo as an email attachment (cause that would be too easy) and instead they make you physically go down to the office and pick it up. Makes no sense but しょうがないや。
Got to the office around noon, only to find it everyone either gone or hungover, and the whole place looking pretty much like this:

Yup, it was a packing day. I'm all sad to leave our office :-(  not that the office itself is particularly nice, but I really love the area. And the new area, aside from being a pain in the butt to get to (gotta either walk 15 minutes or take a bus from the station) is, from what I hear, not so much with the tons of fantastic restaurants that our current place has.  It's gonna be really weird. We put everything in boxes, the movers are hauling it all over the weekend, and when I go in to work on Tuesday it will be to a different office.
I am gonna get so lost.

By the time everything was finished up, I was completely exhausted. But Fri night was the big party for the 1st anniversary of the Omotesando Gyre building, and we got invited to the MoMA Design Store party there. All the shops in the building were doing promotions and events and things--MoMA, Chanel, this organic restaurant called Cinegro was giving out awesome food...it was really cool.  And there were these very odd box-headed recycling people wandering around...? I didn't really get it.

And there was some sort of champagne lounge that had--well, champagne--and also a live performance by some duo called MCU. I tihnk they're newbies, like they're gonna debut in a few weeks or something? They were pretty good tho. They got everybody really into the show, dancing and everything. I took a video.  hehe.

New PV: another Fuma! well, technically his character was a Yasha but...

For those of you who don't know, I'm referencing the crack-tastic high school-sports-feuding-ninja-clans show Fuma no Kojiro that we subbed, and the fact that the twins (see last PV) as well as the lead singer of this band, Rei, were all in the show. 

Anyway, the PV is not the most interesting (fairly typical for a debut PV) and it came out several months ago--but I like the song and I don't have anything better to post this week.  lol.

enjoy!

(wow this was a long post)

Cole Haan 80th Anniversary Party

Thursday night.

We got to go to...well, you see it up there in the title.  It was a really ridiculously cool party, very fashiony (read: lots of champagne, next to nothing to eat) at the Aoyama Geihinkan which is a crazy roman-style colonnaded building near my office. Apparently it gets used for weddings and stuff a lot. 

When you walked in, they gave everybody a bag full of US pennies...which was really weird until we realized that there were blackjack and baccarat tables set up and that the pennies were for betting at the games.  Sort of reminded me of Yale Casino Night, only with more expensive clothes, and celebrities.  Beni Arashiro was there, and so was Kazuhiro Nishijima, which is really funny because our arts editor Dan just interviewed him, and we're about to put him on the cover of Metropolis!  lol.  He was really popular with the press--everybody wanted to ask him about his recent engagement to former Takarazuka star Miki Maya.  0.o

Some pics from the event: 

These candles sell for upwards of $1000 in Harajuku.    

Tents full of fashionable people.   

More candles, by the pool.     

Shoes and bags display by the entrance.      

The blackjack tables.   

It was a pretty swanky party.  There was also a jazz band playing most of the night.  They were really good!  Dan said it wasa guy called Jose James--he's playing at Billboard Live Tokyo this weekend.

but, it's not Halloween!

Fun stuff! so, Wed afternoon i stayed late at school--first for my weekly project meeting with Senda-sensei, and then after attempting to do some more of the aforementioned bungaku reading. (which, incidentally, was a resounding failure--i was deathly sleepy and kept nodding off in the middle of sentences). anyway, i packed it in around 4:30 and started to head for home, since Wed is my night for kyudo practice. but, on my way home i got distracted in the plaza between Queen's and Landmark, by a guy who was putting on a fire juggling show! which of course, thanks to YAGS, is forever associated in my mind with Yale and Halloween. ^_^
anyway, he was doing a pretty good job, so i sat down to watch the end of his show (which actually made me about 15 mins late for kyudo...but whatev). The funniest part, though, was that right about that time, it decided to get incredibly windy, so the poor guy's fire kept going out. lol.
and of course, being me, i also took a video!


(the sound in the background is the wind blowing--i told you it was strong!)
Then, he finished up with a bang by juggling while riding an extremely tall unicycle--just getting on it was rather a production. he had to have a guy from the audience come up and hold a big pole that he used to support himself while he climbed onto the thing. i have to say, i was amazed that he managed it at all!
anyway, it was lots of fun, and even though it made me late for kyudo, it also gave me the energy to actually go to kyudo, which was a good thing--i'd been so tired at school that i was actually contemplating skipping

oh, i forgot

When we were at Osanbashi, there was this cruise pulling out, or something. I really have no idea what was going on. All I know is when we got there, there was a huge ship docked, and all the people on it were standing at the railing throwing colored paper streamers to the people standing on the Osanbashi side. I took tons of pictures of the streamers and stuff, and also whipped out my small camera to catch a video of the ship leaving the dock.

we made a movie!

As promised, here's the short movie we made in Business Japanese, "A Day in the Life of a New Employee". Hope everyone enjoys the embarrassment as much as we did making it. ;-P

Cast
Sarah: Outa (Japan Commerce Co, Sales Dept.) / Receptionist / Suzuki-san
Katy: New Employee
Misa: Itou (Sun Commerce, Sales Dept.)
Sean: Tanaka-san / Nomura-san / Receptionist
Staff
Director: Ari-sensei

Scene 1: First day on the job
Scene 2: Telephoning Japan Commerce Co.
Scene 3: At the receptionist for Japan Commerce
Scene 4: In the reception room
Scene 5: Exchanging business cards, Take 2 (take 1 was better...)
Scene 6: Ending the business meeting
Scene 7: Leaving the company
Scene 8: At the receptionist
Credits!

流鏑馬 Yabusame!!

I humbly apologize in advance for the overload of pics/video that is to follow.
これからの山ほどの写真とビデオで、大変申し訳ございません。
(see, Taigu Hyougen is useful for something!)
I apologize also for the sometimes poor quality of the pics. The lighting was really weird cause of the trees, and because it was so crowded I had to hold my camera all the way up in the air to get a shot of the target...so the shots aren't terribly clean-looking.

We were worried that we'd be late for the yabusame, which was supposed to start at 1pm, but Molly and I ended up running into the procession right as it was heading out for the shooting grounds. So, you can see the horses...and now, this is the size of the target that they're actually shooting at:
I took a video of the procession of archers and assistant-people as they enter the shooting grounds for the first time.


And here they are coming back over toward the starting point:
These guys have various ceremonial roles--retrieving the arrows, fixing the target if it falls off, confirming the hit... things like that. Oh, and here's another shot of one of the archers, you can see him a bit better here. Now, for some of the actual shooting! I wish I had been able to capture still shots of the archers, but they were just going too fast. And I don't have any fancy video editing software (or any of the skills to do it) so those also I will just kind of have to post as-is.
But first off--a hit!


The next one doesn't quite make it, but he was really close!


And another hit. I swear, the most common word I heard that afternoon was "かっこいい！" and it's true!! :-D


Here's the archers riding back down to the starting point after the first round of shooting. This is when the dudes with the hats get to hand them back their arrows.


For the next round, they switched the kind of target to a (*much*) smaller one. Sorry about the next couple pics--this is where my camera battery ran out, so I was reduced to using my keitai. So I mean, I spose for a cell phone the quality's pretty good, but...
At any rate, here's the new target: It's tiny!!! And here's an extremely poor-quality video of someone actually *hitting* that tiny target! It's a little difficult to see just from the vid that he hit it, but you can definitely tell from the cheering and flag-waving, LOL.

(Wow, in retrospect, that really *is* a poor-quality video.... Oh well, I'll keep it in).

And this is the end of my blog postings for the time being. I think I've pretty much covered everything interesting that's happened over the break--and nothing interesting's likely to happen on Sunday, cause well...I have to actually start all of the homework that was assigned over the break. Yes, homework. So I foresee a day of manic studying holed up in my room (which is part of the reason I wanted to get this blog stuff taken care of now, even if it did mean staying up a little late--altho it's nothing compared to my college days. Wow, I can actually say that, huh: "my college days"...ugh that's weird...).
Ok, so I got completely and utterly off-topic there...I blame it on the lateness of the hour. Anyway, wish me luck in my studying endeavors (and not *too much* procrastination).
That's all for now. じゃ、またね。

Here endeth the 休み

Friday was the best!!!
I met up with Molly and went into Tokyo to go to the 秋大祭 Great Autumn Festival at Meiji Jingu, which is a temple built to honor the spirits of the Meiji emperor and his wife. The emperor was born in early November, so each year around his birthday they hold a huge festival at the shrine, featuring performances and exhibitions of all sorts of traditional Japanese arts and martial arts. It was really amazing, and I know I didn't even see half of the stuff that was going on today.
There was a chrysanthemum exhibition, with chrysanthemums (of course) as well as all these little bonsai things that people had made into different shapes and stuff. Really cool! And everywhere we went, there were tons of people, and lots of Japanese people dressed not just in kimono, but in these really traditional, fancy outfits like what you'd wear to a coming of age ceremony or something. It was wonderful to see! I think one place in the temple that we passed, there was actually a wedding going on. At least, that's what it looked like: And of course there were lots of foreign tourists taking endless pictures of the kids all dressed up--they were really cute, but I felt kind of sorry for them. Speaking of cute...these kids weren't dressed up, but they were so adorable I just couldn't resist! ;-P We also passed a small stage where there were some people doing a taiko drumming performance, which we only watched for a few minutes, but it was really impressive. I took a video!


And then in various locations around the grounds there was a whole bunch of different martial arts demonstrations going on. I didn't get pictures of lots of it, cause my camera battery died--so what I don't have photographic evidence of is 1) the Iaido demonstration: sort of like kendo (Japanese swordfighting) except they use real swords instead of wooden ones, so I guess you could say it's more like Japanese fencing or something; 2) a whole bunch of other martial arts that I don't really know the names for--they were fighting with wooden swords like kendo, but without armor, and there was one where instead of swords they used really long wooden staffs, and even sometimes a staff-person vs. a sword-person.
One that I did manage to get some pics of was again, something I don't know the name of. But a bunch of guys in samurai armor came out onto the field and were doing exercises firing their muskets, and there was even a cannon that went off once. I wasn't expecting it, and the BOOM scared the crap out of me.But of course the whole reason that I wanted to come to the Meiji Jingu festival in the first place was because of kyudo (--whee!!). LOL. There were actually several different kyudo things going on, but most of them were at like 9am, which when it takes an hour to get to the temple, is a bit early. So I had to sacrifice those. But the best part was, fortunately, late enough that I could get there to see it. And that is something called Yabusame. Yabusame is kyudo done from horseback--they ride at breakneck speed toward the target, and then shoot as the horse runs past it, without stopping. I had heard about it, and seen pictures, but never thought I would actually get the chance to see it in person--so when I heard about the Meiji Jingu festival (thank you, Amy!!!) I was about as thrilled as it's possible to be.
...And as I'm writing this, and thinking about the million pictures and videos that I took today...I'm realizing that this post will get even longer than the last one. So in the name of economy, I think I'll cut this post off here, and then resume the Yabusame ecstasies in a new post. So until then... ;-D

浜大祭

Friday was something that I'd been waiting for, ever since I first heard about it--IUC arranged for us to go to the 横浜市立大学学園祭 Yokohama City University's School Festival (浜大祭 for short).
The main reason that I was looking forward to this trip so much, is that we'd been told there would be the possibility of joining some of the student clubs/teams, and I was really looking to use that as a way of making Japanese friends. That is definitely been the only major complaint I have with IUC--there's no built-in way of meeting Japanese our age, which has meant that up to now, I haven't been able to really make any Japanese friends. The friends I have made are wonderful, and I love hanging out with them, but they're all gaijin like me, which can be frustrating--sometimes to the point that I start wondering if I'm really in Japan. But I digress.
Probably around 15 IUC-ers--we met up at Yokohama station bright and early in the morning (ugh) and all headed out to the HamaDai campus together. For starters, we were broken up into groups, and met with student volunteers who would give us a tour of the campus and the festival. Outside there was a stage with student performances (dance and music); lots of tents where various clubs/organizations were selling goods or food; stalls with different Japanese fair games... you get the idea. (For those readers familiar with the 'Croft, think Fall Festival, but bigger).
I found out later that most of the other tour groups didn't fare quite as well, and people mostly ended up leaving around 1 or 2pm--so the group I got placed in was clearly the best! :-D My group was me, Jason, and Misa; and our student guides were Ai, Naoko, and Jacky (he was actually an international student as well, from China). They were all really friendly, and we had a blast!
Ironically, walking around at the festival, the first group that we got accosted by happened to be the archery club, trying to get people over to their booth where you could try and shoot a target or balloons to win prizes. I mentioned that I had been on the archery team too, so they decided to let me use a "real" bow, instead of the cheap & light ones they had for everybody else. This was great, except for 1) the bow was right-handed (when I explained I was a lefty, the response was "頑張ってください Well, please try") and 2) it was *reeeeally* heavy. So I didn't acquit myself all that well, but I did manage to hit one balloon--and win a lollipop.
We ran into another IUC group--here's Hansell-sensei getting ready to try his luck...Next we wandered inside and found out we were just in time for a screening in the film club's room. They were showing 3 short student films (about 15 mins each). The first one was a "looking back on your happy youthful days" sort of a piece, with 3 or 4 high school boys goofing around on the train platform, and then it cut to one of the boys in a suit on his way to work, and he sees the platform and remembers those days. The second film--in addition to being in Japanese--was one of those super-deep indie psychological things, so I really didn't understand it at all. The third film was my favorite--a sort of sweet love story. A girl runs into this guy who grants 3 wishes to someone--he explains that he can't go away until she's made all of her wishes, but she can't decide on the last one, and eventually as time goes on, she realizes she likes having him around. Finally the guy explains that she has until tomorrow to make her wish, or he'll disappear anyway, but she decides not to say what her last wish is, since either way he'll leave, but then at the very end he comes back, and when she asks why, he says "It's what you wished for." Aaawwww.......
After the movie, we were all pretty hungry so we went in search of food at the stalls outside. And there was a *lot* of food. Takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, Chinese fried rice, tempura ice cream, cotton candy (which I actually got to try making! ;-D It's a lot harder than it looks)--and the list goes on. At any rate, it was yummy. Here's a view of one of the main food-stall streets.The orchestra club also had a booth nearby, where they were playing chamber music pretty much all day. I guess they traded off...?After lunch we went back inside the building cause Jacky had found this really neat room he wanted us all to see. It was the...Train Club...or something? I'm not really sure. At any rate, they had this neat train-driving simulation video game, and the controller was an actual set of train controls. You had to stop at the stations, and watch out for signals and all that stuff. Jason tried it, but I think I would have crashed or something. I'm not entirely certain that it was even *possible* in the game to crash, but I think I would have managed it. They also had a table with all these neat train parts, like those hanging handles in the cars, and different train signs. We posed! From L-R is Jason, Misa, me, and Ai. Naoko was taking the pictures, so she's not in it--and Jacky got a phone call so he ended up not being in the picture either. He was a little sad when he came back that we had done it without him. ;-P LOL.
Then, it was time for Naoko's friend's band--The Daytrippers--to go on stage outside, so we all went back to go and see their show. They seriously thought they were rock stars for real. It was pretty fun--especially when the lead singer (Naoko's friend) fell off the stage in the middle of the first song (*not* on purpose). :-O But I did snatch a video of them (post-tumble). Note the very enthusiastic fans to stage left, LOL. I only wish I'd taken more video, but しょうがないから、とりあえずenjoy what I've posted here.


Lastly (but definitely not leastly) the final event on the main stage was something called "Mr. Lady," which is basically a beauty contest for guys dressed as girls. There were 4 contestants, and they went through a series of rounds to determine who made the best woman. As Ai explained to me, "At other universities, like Keio or Waseda or wherever, they all do beauty contests and stuff, to see who's the prettiest girl, or the coolest guy--but that's boring, everybody does that. At HamaDai, we've never done those kinds of contests. Instead, we have okama contests." ;-P
Here's contestant #1: "My hobbies are shopping...and laundry..."


The next video is contestant #4, who's the one that Ai thought was the obvious winner from the get-go. And it's true, he was completely adorable! ;-) I only wish I'd taken a video of #3 (the one in the dark sweater and skirt) as well, because he had a super deep voice, and just made the most AWFUL woman I've ever seen. It was hilarious.


After that, the festival was winding down, and Jason and I had promised to meet Molly and Paul for okonomiyaki dinner, so we had to leave the festival. But we'd already exchanged contact info with Naoko, Ai, and Jacky, and they promised to get some of their friends together and call us up for izakaya, or bowling, or clubbing in Roppongi sometime soon. (Earlier in the day, Naoko or Ai would say, "yeah, we'll all have to go out together. We'll go to a club" and Jacky would excitedly jump in with "Tonight? :-D " )

Wow, this became a really long post. Sorry. Hope you enjoyed my ramblings tho!

A parade of what?

So, this will be the first in a series of posts about my totally amazing 秋休み。First off, is the "Quiet Shamisen Parade." And what exactly is a quiet shamisen parade?--you might be asking. I was wondering pretty much the same thing when I went to go see it.
The parade was in honor of some festival (I think?), and was held over in 祐天寺 Yutenji--Minato Mirai sen, on the way to Shibuya. 祐天寺 is apparently known for shamisen parades (or so I heard). Anyway, I went to see the parade with Paul--not an IUC student, but he's Amy L's roommate, and so has kind of become IUC by default. Paul's friend Kyoka (Japanese, but he met her in LA working at a radio station, I think?) is sort of an experimental musician/singer (I've heard her music described as "weird" or "out there") but she apparently also takes shamisen lessons--hence the parade. It was basically a whole bunch of people in kimonos and traditional Japanese dress, either playing the shamisen, singing, or doing traditional dances while they paraded down the street.
It was a really neat thing to see, and 祐天寺 is a bit of an old-fashioned sort of area so the whole thing had this really traditional, nostalgic feel to it. Made even more so by the hole in the wall ramen place that Paul and I ate dinner at after. We sat and chatted, waiting for Kyoka, and then went over with her to this sort of "after party" for the parade participants. It was held in a big room in a nearby kindergarten, which meant that we were all sitting on those preschooler-size mini chairs with our knees up in our chins, drinking beer and eating yakitori skewers. It was rather an odd experience. :-) Especially the part when the dude who was sort of in charge of the parade told me that I had "very pretty teeth." (Umm...OK.....?)

And now, for some more photos!

Paul and Kyoka.

Here's another one of Kyoka playing shamisen in the parade.

I just really liked this woman's kimono.

And now, for videos!!!


And next is one I took that lets you see a little more of the dancing.

Beer～!

So, 2 weekends ago (late, late, I know...) we had some pretty fun activities going on. First off, it was a really short week--not only a Monday-off 3-day weekend (gotta love all those Japanese national holidays...even if I have no idea what it's celebrating...), but that Friday was also "Yokohama Day." In other words~~FIELD TRIP~~!
There were two options that you could pick from: 1) hiking [please--it was like a million degrees that day!], or 2) going to the Prefectural History Museum and then the Kirin Beer Factory.

Guess which one I picked?

The Kirin factory was pretty interesting--well, it was mostly just taking this tour around, like "this is how beer is made," and "if you'll look down below, you can see the assembly line where we put the beer in bottles." That sort of thing. But, at the end of the tour, everybody got 2 coupons for free glasses of beer! Which of course is the point of going to these things (lol).
Here's a candid photo I snapped of some of the IUC-ers.
(apologies to everyone who's weird mid-swallowing facial expressions I am exposing).

Then, the following day (Saturday) was the start of Yokohama's Oktoberfest! Yes, they have those in Japan, too. Lol. It was held in a big tent out by the 赤レンガ倉庫 Red-Brick Warehouse, which is a collection of Meiji/Taisho era brick buildings, now mostly housing restaurants and shops, &c. At any rate, they had a huge tent set up, under which were lots of long tables, a stage, and all of the beer and food stalls. I went over to check it out with Jason, and two other girls from IUC, Molly and Misa.At the stage up front, there were various groups performing in full-out German leiderhosen (or however you spell it). And a whole lot of gaijin who appeared to be actual Germans had showed up (for a taste of their home beer, perhaps?). There was this one song that kept getting played, every half hour or so--I didn't recognize it, but the Japanese all seemed to get very excited whenever it came on, with lots of standing on tables and swaying of mugs, and such. There were even several conga lines. The Japanese are, on the whole, a rather serious lot--but when they cut loose, they *really* go all out.

Last day in Hakodate

Packed and ready to go, finally it was my last day in Hakodate...sadness! I had planned to take the train down from Hakodate (cheaper than flying and it wasn't as if I was in any rush). My train didn't leave until 10:40, so my host family took me down to the Asaichi, or Morning Market, to walk around and have breakfast. The asaichi is a daily morning fish market down by Hakodate station, where you can buy pretty much anything that comes from the sea, just about as fresh as you can get it. And I mean that in the literal sense--one of the buildings had a large tank, full of squid swimming around.For a small fee, you can get a fishing pole and catch one of the squid. You put it in a bucket, and about five minutes later they bring it to you all chopped up on a plate, and~voila~sashimi! It was so fresh, some of the tentacles were still wriggling around on the plate! (A little bit creepy--I made sure I only ate the dead parts). Here's a video--Satoshi catches the squid!
And then....we eat!

P.S. Here's a picture, finally, of my host family! Well, part of it anyway. I never did manage to get a good opportunity to snap a picture of everyone all together, but--
On the left is Sae, my host sister; Satoshi is in the middle; and the one on the right is actually my host mom's younger sister, Aunt Hami, who often came over to hang out with us.

Tanabata

In Japan, July 7 is a holiday called Tanabata, which in Hakodate at least is sort of like Christmas and Halloween all rolled into one. First (and this is common all over Japan) you take these strips of colored paper and write out an お願い、or a wish, and then hang them from a bamboo stalk which is placed in the entryway. That's the Christmas part. The picture to the left is my Tanabata wish. For those of you who can't read Japanese, it says "I want to become good at kanji." ;-P
Next (the Halloween part), on the evening of Tanabata the little kids all dress up in yukata and go around from house to house singing a Tanabata song, and they get candy (sounds familiar, right?). Apparently, though, this tradition is really only in Hakodate (too bad for the other kids, huh?)
Here are some pictures of the kids all dressed up (kawaii!), and onw of my host mom handing out おかしい (sweets).









Below is a short video I took of the kids singing the Tanabata song!