A radish, a racist and a romper suit

Halloween is pretty odd. Its odd as a concept. Its odd in practice. Its totally beyond help bizarre in Japan. This halloween, I decided not to do the standard Darth Vader costume that has become a loveable stalwart of the Edinburgh 'dress up as anything remotely applicable to a theme most people will ignore in favour of whatever is cheapest' party scene. I went in an oversized all in one pink panther romper suit. I consequentially enjoyed the most comfortable evening of my life in the reassuring pink envelope of cheap nylon fleece and cheap canned lager.
YNU enjoys its annual festival at the same time as halloween, this meant that there was a purpose built infrastructure for lash; complete with breakdancers, close harmony singers, foodstalls....and my personal favourite 'the Miss YNU competition.' What is usually a fairly standard stroll towards the library on an ordinary day at uni was magically tranformed into a rampant Japanese hybrid of the Koh San Road and a world foods fair. Every concievable society had a stall selling something, and some ferociously polite groupies using a formidable combination of giggling smiles and emotional blackmail to secure a £1.50 sale of some slightly undercooked teriyaki sticks. Obviously the arrival of a horde of westerners in various permutations of cute and cuddly onesie outfits is not a normal spectacle in Japan. It did however win me a free curry, a free beer and a slightly warm kitkat by way of remunerations for trick or treating.
Miss YNU turned out to be rather less than the hype made it out to be. And the hype was fairly minimal. I did meet one of the five contestants, but I get the impression she was only being nice to get my vote.... I had absolutely no idea how to vote anyways so I think it was mainly a lost cause. Some of the costume highlights included; my friend from the yakuza (no jokes) dressed as a radish (he normally wears all black and looks like a seriously mean piece of work), a japanese guy who didnt understand the racist connotations of trying to scare people whilst wearing a mask of a generic looking black guy, and someone dressed as a giant sperm.
The hilarity has been cleared up as quickly as it arrived, and today the university looked and felt as if nothing had happened. It felt strangely Narnia like to walk into a normal lecture theatre and find it transformed into a UV rave....or best of all a room full of commotase/ paralytic drunk Japanese students who hadn't made it past 9pm.
Its suddenly got cold here, so its finally time to crack out scarves and hats....maybe I'll wear my halloween costume in bed tonight.