A frightful day out in Kawasaki | The Japan Times
This event was so cool even an idiot like me has heard of some of its DJs. Too bad we missed it. Actually, considering the weather last weekend, I'd be surprised if this parade happened this year. I hope it did.
Your day-to-day life here in Japan can be pretty boring. The Internet phenomenon of "Meanwhile, in Japan..." with some outrageous photo that purports to show that Japan is some kind of hallucinatory maelstrom of the strange and unusual is only so much bullshit. Exaggeration, cherry-picking, confirmation bias and all that. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu isn't popping through everyone's windows at night with her back-up dancers, there are no nationwide lotteries for students in junior high classes to kill each other off and most kids are too exhausted from school, club activities and cram schools to do much giant robot piloting or sword-fighting against demons from another universe. Trust me, most of the time you're not missing a whole lot.
But when things do happen here, you find that in Japan the fun is unlike what you'll find anywhere else. The live shows I've been to here have been by and large better than the ones I went to back home (although we tore it up on the dance floor every New Year's Eve in Athens, Georgia, and I miss that a lot every December). And there are these Halloween parades that, if these photos are to be trusted, look like a pure delight. So if you have a chance to take part in one of these events, you really should. There's Halloween done in your home country's style, and then there's Japanese Halloween, which must be the coolest of the Halloweens.
The rest of the time it's work and dinner with family and watching TV and going to the supermarket.
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