Today, we bring you another blog post from Motoko, JapanesePod101.com lesson creator, host and Office Party Planner! Motoko will be sharing more bilingual posts on our blog, so check back often and leave a comment!

Hi everyone, Motoko here!

Today, I’d like to let you all know what we did for Halloween here in the office. Unfortunately, Halloween has not been popular in Japan in the past, but it has been getting more and more popular recently. The most famous event would be the Halloween parade in Kawasaki, as well as some other costume parties in nightclubs in the city. People usually wear a costume and become their favorite characters, and can enjoy dancing and eating. Few people go to the neighbors and say “Trick or Treat!” like people in the US do – this is because many people still don’t know what Halloween is here.

Since most of our team is from other countries, we decorated the office with Halloween stuff. Getting into the spirit, our boss Peter took the initiative with the decorations. We also had another drawing competition, like we have for other occasions in the past. Our team members drew their own jack-o’-lanterns and then put them to a vote on the 31st. We had 2 in the first place. One is the ‘abstract’ interpretation on the top left (G) and the other one has big sparkly cute eyes (I).

Which one do you like the most? What kind of jack-o’-lantern would you draw?

Extra photo: Our new motto is “no sick days”! We work ourselves to the bone!

(2012 Nov.)