Today is Halloween. We invited some of the neighbour children over to do a little trick-or-treating — a kind of cross-cultural experience. Japanese kids don’t really trick-or-treat, and our kids were really sad to miss it this year. Luckily, the Dutch-themed amusement park Huis Ten Bosch has park-wide trick-or-treating for the entire month of October! So, last weekend, we flew over to Nagasaki (20mins) and took a bus (1hr) to the park. We decided not to go an actually Halloween to avoid the crowds as much as possible.
The park was fairly empty, though some attractions did have one or two hour waits. Upon arrival we purchased the official trick-or-treat buckets that the park offers (¥800), and were issued a map with the locations of all trick-or-treat locations (about 10) around the park. At each location the kids were asked to recite the words “Trick-or-Treat!” and then submit their trick-or-treat checklist for a hanko to make the transaction official. Then they were handed their single piece of sanctioned candy. The highly efficient business process continued at each location until by the end the little bucket was perfectly filled with treats. Unsurprisingly, my kids were a bit non-plussed at all the order. But as I said, better than nothing…
Other than the one night at Huis Ten Bosch, and a quick day trip to Fukuoka to buy a new camera, I did not travel much this month. In fact, I spent a lot more time touring around Iki. The Ikkikoku Museum invited me to ride along with the local Volunteer Tour Guide club on their annual nerdfest of visiting obscure nooks and crannies on the island. It was lots of fun! I was the first time they had a gaijin along, and since most of them were twice my age, I really stuck out!
I also had some visitors from Dubai and Kyoto come to the island. Taking them around was a lot of fun, and I will blog about that next month. I have been here for six months already, and am still having a good time discovering and rediscovering some cool places on the island.
Stay healthy! Cheerio,
/ck
🖋 From the Blog
Excerpt on travel luck
I cut this from a travel piece I wrote for a magazine to be published at the end of the year. It was cute, so I thought I would share it on the blog.
Pure Invention
Matt Alt’s pop history of Japanese products (toys, video games, karaoke, anime, etc) is lots of fun. I take a little side path to challenge its framing.
Immersed in audio dramas
Have you been seeing all these new audio dramas that Audible has been producing lately? Quality entertainment, especially The Sandman.
🧭 Elsewhere
My latest review for the Literary Review of Canada about public transit is now out from behind the paywall. Link →
Photos from Huis Ten Bosch. Link →
Photos from the Iki Volunteer Guide Bus Tour. Link →
Made a NSFW discovery on Man Mountain this month. Link →
This beat-boxing monk is super cool. Link →
