It's SO Cute!

I went to a little local festival yesterday, mainly because it also had a flea market. 

 

There were no fleas worth buying (all practical stuff like shoes and clothes, no toys to be found!) I ended up getting a pair of socks and some cans of fish (not sure which fish, but they were cheap).

 

Really crowded too and the only Halloween related table was this guy and his balloons.

 Outside, I found a vendor with some delish dishes; I had a chicken kebab.

 

I had missed the musical performance and there wasn't another for an hour, so I walked home. I stopped at a Department store and bought a cactus and some KitKats.

Then I spent several hours just milling about the apartment, I decided to rewatch a South Park episode because there was a topic I wanted to talk about. Labubus! There appears to be a Popmart (Somewhere? May be online only, click the link if you dare.) Prior to the SP episode, I had never heard of a Labubu, now I see them everywhere, but only behind glass, and not in their blind box packaging, and certainly not cheap. 

 

You can try and randomly win one in a lottery. Spend 1000 and you're guaranteed a key to a little locker with the prize inside. What you don't see are the 200 lockers behind this, thus your chances of winning are about 20:1.

 

Another option to get them is on the secondary market, in this Mercari.  Also not cheap.

 

 

I saw one in a UFO Catcher outside a music shop and tried my hand unsuccessfully. The claw tends to just pick it up enough to get your hopes up and then dash them. A little eight-year old boy was hoping to win and his grandfather dropped several coins in an attempt to so. (SO DID I!)

 

SPOILER ALERT for a month-old episode:

 

Anyway, back to the South Park episode. One girl is showing another girl her recent acquisition of a Labubu. (Serenity Labubu)

 

It's SO cute! The other girl showed off hers, (Loyalty Labubu).

 

 

It's SO CUTE! Yet, in order to show off, she brought out her big guns, (Chestnut Cocoa Labubu, super-rare). The first girl commented that it must be a knock-off and a brawl ensued, one wailing on the other until the school counsellor (piss off autocorrect, that's the Canadian spelling; as an aside, the counsellor is Jesus Christ) broke it up.

Later on, a gal named Red, manipulated Butters into buying her a super rare one for her birthday. She already has a few, but MUST HAVE the rare one,

and texted him the one she wants.

 

Butters goes to the Asian PopUp store (run by the guy who used to run the Chinese Wok place) and charges him 85$ for a blind-bagged one. The proprietor blames the TARIFFS as to the high prices. He got a common one. He leaves and comes back with another 85$ only to be told it now costs 125$ because the TARIFFS rose again. He had no choice than to try and win one in the crane game. 
Of course he did! (After innumerable tries.)

 

Red opens her gift and is shocked to see that she got the one she desired and offers to go upstairs with Butters. She then asks him to video film a ritual in which they call up demonic forces. (More than what Butters had in mind.)

 

 

It begins to rise up and metamorphose into a demonic version of itself.

Wow, Cool! and then a demon appears. (YOU can check out the episode for the rest.)

This is not just a funny little ribbing by a cartoon satire show, it has been happening in real life!

 

Hmm. Maybe I don't want to get one just for its novelty sake.

Okay, last night I was going to write the above when all of a sudden I got distracted by a John Carpenter movie I've never seen AND Halloween one after the other on my Twitch Channel. So I watched them and went to bed at 2:00 am.

The movie in question is a TV movie that came out right around the same time as Halloween. "Someone's Watching Me!"

 

Pretty good movie in the Stalker phones at midnight genre. While watching Halloween, I noticed that when babysitting, Jamie Lee Curtis and the kid were watching Howard Hawke's The Thing from Another World! Four years later, he directed the excellent remake. ('Yuusei kara no Buttai X' (遊星からの物体Ｘ in Japan.)

Here's another Oni. Datsueba lives on the banks of the Sanzu River and judges the gravity of the sins of the dead and steals their clothes? 

 

 

Here's a little video about her.

Kind of discourages you from going skinny dipping, eh?

Check out Cult of the Great Pumpkin  for more Halloween treats. Speaking of which...

 

That's it for now, I somehow managed to miss another days worth of blogging. I have some time off after tomorrow, maybe I can do some catching up.

 

 

 

Ho Ho Hoser!

Here's an update on some of the Kris Kringling I've been up to of late.

Of course over the last two weeks, it has been Christmas lessons with the the kiddies at school. Grade 6 played "Pin the Nose on Rudolph" and Bingo. Grade 5 played PtNoR and I also taught them Rudolph in English. With Grades 3 and 4, we played a bit of PtNoR and turn each kid into a Christmas tree by using tinsel and having them spin around until they are well-trimmed. (I didn't have any formal Xmas tinsel, so we used my leftover Halloween tinsel.) Grades 1 and 2 played decorate the tree while counting out Christmas baubles, and a rousing game of Pass the Poo starring Mr. Hankey.
Lots of fun and very tiring.

Hi-dee-Hooo!

Blindfold the kid with a Santa hat and his colleague must direct him where to "pin" the nose on Rudy. Everyone shrieked, "Kawaii" at the sight of this and most guessed it to be Bambi. Bambi is the go-to name for any faun or young deer here in Japan.
Happy 50th, Rudolph! 

The younger kids were given Trees as homework, these two are my favourites.

 Nice to see an inter-denominational Christmas event. Thanks for coming out Buddha.

A few weeks back, I made 2 cameos as Santa for the Carl Eikaiwa School Christmas Parties. Pop in, do some Hohohoing, hand out some presents, take a pic with a few kids, and pop back out.

I also had a new gig as Santa for the Benesse group of schools. 2 hours as Santa, mingling with the students, playing some games and teaching some English. Since none of them know who I am, I went commando and just used my regular silvery goatee rather than donning a full beard.

 UPDATE: These two pictures have just been added!

Last night, I joined DJ Mokugohan at Ernie's Bar's Party. There was a good crowd and since it was rainy, I drove down and changed in the car. I didn't have time to grab any treats to dole out so people received some either leftover candies from Halloween, a Pumpkin KitKat or a fruity lozenge I had in the car. Everyone still managed to have a good time and I got to hang with a few contenders for Mrs. Claus!

It wasn't just the ladies. There were some guys there too.

Today, I had a full day at the Royal Park Hotel. Pop in to the Banquet, Ho Ho Ho for the families and pop back out. Then I sit in my throne and have pictures taken with each of the kiddies. Of course some kids do suffer from Santa Claustrophobia (the Fear of being trapped near Santa) and bawled instead of smiling.

This is by far the best Santa outfit I've ever worn. A few improvements have been made to the wig and beard to make it more comfortable and less sweaty (you still get a mouthful of synthetic hair from time to time.)

 A new Reindeer!

 This flautist also plays during some of my local weddings!

I have the day off from Santa tomorrow but back to the old grind on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ah no rest for the wicked judge. (Naughty or nice?)