So the English department at my school had a welcoming party for me and a going away party for another teacher.  We went to an Izakaya called Mugi.  Parties like this are called Enkai.  You usually pay a set price before, and then during the party it's all you can eat and all you can drink.  Usually they bring out the food in multiple smaller courses.  And you will see your coworkers eat and drink more than you thought a human being ever could.  But these are really great ways to get to know your coworkers, as the atmosphere is so much more relaxed and fun than what you're used to at school or in the office.

Now I was very lucky, because of course the teacher who organized the event called ahead and explained to them that I was a vegetarian.  And she spent 15 minutes just explaining to the person what that meant and what I could and couldn't eat.  It's things like this that really show you the Japanese spirit and heart. They ended up bringing me about 6 or 7 special dishes just for me!  While everyone else had a mix of individual small dishes, and shared plates.

But the thing that is the most impressive to me is the way the food is presented and the thought that goes into creating seasonal dishes.  You'll notice that my special plates often will have matching themes and colors.

One of the more obvious things you'll learn about me is my absolute obsession with all things pumpkin.  In America, I am quite limited to essentially October and November.  Which can lead me to getting quite carried away while I have the chance.  

​Lucky for ME Japan has pumpkin all year round.  Also Japanese pumpkin is delicious!  To top that off, Japan has a pretty fantastic Halloween season.  It's still a pretty new holiday and it's totally unheard of to see little kids going door to door.  But Halloween decorations appeared in stores half way through September.  So that's not too far off from American stores.  Plus, a lot of people love the excuse to dress up in weird costumes.  So it ends up being more a thing adults do for fun.  Or often you'll see Halloween events at schools as sort of a Western cultural lesson.

Well anyway, as I'm basking in the glow of pumpkins and ghosts, I want to share with you a little of Japan's Halloween flavor.  Now, as you may recall, I live in a very rural town in Kyushu, so it just goes to show you that the commercialization of holidays knows no boundaries.  

So here I have for you pictures of all the Halloween products I found in just ONE TRIP to the grocery store.  Some of the food products have special Halloween flavors, but you'll see a lot of them are just Halloween packaging with no change to the flavor.  You'll also notice that Japan doesn't do pumpkin spice flavor, as they don't really have pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice.  Everything is just actual pumpkin flavor.... which... is pretty gosh darn awesome.  I mean I like pumpkin spice too, but to put ACTUAL pumpkin in the food?  Revolutionary.