Halloween at my Eikaiwa

So, on a cold Thursday night, a few days before Halloween, meeting up with a group of Japanese who don’t understand much English, what do you do?! Carve pumpkins of course! Yes yes I know, how is carving pumpkins helpful to an English speaking class?! In answer to that, well... it’s not. BUT if you want the full flavour of cultural exchange, I think the carving pumpkin tradition translates pretty well. Basically I bought 8 pumpkins for the evening (brought to the class very expertly in my suitcase – pumpkins are apparently really heavy, who would have thought?!) so 4 pumpkins for each class, making for the perfect competition setting. After giving a few pointers at the beginning – such as ‘cut off the top and scoop out the middle BEFORE cutting the face (yes, people tried this!) I just sat back and watched the chaos commence. Actually, although being really funny to watch as people flinched away from the knife threatening to take their eyes out, the result was some quite good looking pumpkins. Overall, expensive night yes but well worth it.

Class 1 Winners!

Class 2 Winners!