happy halloween and happy november

on friday i did some paper/card/stamping crafts with my students (i have a part time job teaching conversational english to japanese adults, mostly). these were the stamps i carved, which were super fun. they are carved from soft eraser-like rubber that is sold for that purpose, and i want to make more; it's such a satisfying and quick (well, depending how detailed you get!) craft.
halloween has become popular relatively recently in japan, maybe in the last 5 years, and it come as mainly a commercial event, where stores put up decorations and sell lots of pumpkin themed products. there's no trick or treating, and no pumpkin carving (you can buy imported american pumpkins at foreign groceries for $25, and japanese kabucha are too hard to carve, trust me. if you are in japan and feel the need to make a jack o lantern, i recommend using a turnip like they did in the original olden days). anyway, i had fun explaining the meaning of 'boo!' as opposed to booing an unpopular sports team.


and happy november! i've decided to give nablopomo another go this month, the classic month for daily blogging. which i think will be great, since recently i feel like i have so many projects i want to try, and things i'd like to share here. and some goals around the theme of becoming more organized and disciplined. back in college the first time, i remember november being a terrible dismal month, but i don't feel that way at all this year. a big part of that probably has to do with being in kyoto/japan, where november is really still part of fall, with crisp but not too cold weather and the best and most vivid fall leaves.

happy halloween

here's the pumpkin i carved last week. i love the crafty and creative aspects of this holiday. last year i was in japan, and i organized a pumpkin carving party for my adult english conversation students, most of whom had never carved a pumpkin. for some reason (ok, because they don't really celebrate halloween, at least not the pumpkin carving part) orange pumpkins are scarce and expensive in japan. you can buy them from foreign import food stores for 25-30 dollars! so we experimented. i carved a japanese pumpkin, or kabucha. those are HARD to cut. but they make a yummy pumpkin pie. which brings me back to the photo of jack up there, waiting in the fridge. i baked him at 350 degrees for an hour, and then made him into pie. and it was tasty.

now i must walk away from the internets, and work on my halloween costume.