About once a month, I visit Asahikawa Ro Gakko, or Asahikawa School for the Deaf. It's a great school and the students have a lot of interest and enthusiasm for English and foreign culture. Today was their school festival, which was a series of plays and musical numbers that the students had practiced and presented for the their family and members of the community.

Some of the elementary school students performed "The Wizrd of Oz."

From left to right are Dorothy, the Scarecrow, The Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man

The scarecrow asking the Wizard for a brain

This was a Japanese play by the youngsters

The junior high students performed as well

    Tonight was the International Committee's annual Halloween Party for Asahikawa.I put together this costume where I was supposed to be half day and half night, or half sun half moon. Yeah, it sucked, but the party was still fun, and the costume was much more comfortable than the sheet-oriented costumes of years past.

Sandra was from the islands?? and Lavonda was a construction worker...with purple hair

Tami was a monkey and James sported his infamous nun outfit

There were a lot of little Harry Potters

Carving jack-o-lanterns is important to any Halloween

Some of the pumpkins lit up

A little Dracula

A little leopard

We played a mummy-wrapping game that was really fun

Here is Patrick, the US exchange student at Asahikawa Commerical High School

Some other Asahikawa Commercial High students

A lot of the city's exchange students turned out for the party

Lavonda and an adorable little tiger

We went out for Italian afterwards

    Ruth, the new ALT in the town of Kamikawa, just to the East of Asahikawa, was having a Halloween party for the students of her town today. Lavonda and I went out to offer our help to her. The kids seemed to have a really great time and it was a lot of fun for me, too.

Ruth on the left and Lavonda on the right

Some of the costumes were really cute.

We played the mummy-wrapping game here as well.

    I headed out to The Den that night for The Den's annual Halloween Party. It was pretty fun.

Left to Right: Sarah, Mel, Jessie, and Lavonda

The Nippon Ham Fighters Cheerleaders (kindof)

Tami and Julianna's kogyaru costumes were way too realistic

Aya and Bob