Halloween in Korea

The day is well past now, of course. But here are some pictures of what we did on Halloween. The holiday has become popular in the past few years among children studying English, which almost everyone does at an after-school 'academy'. My friend Rora (her English name) lives down the hall from us in our building. She has a small after-school academy in her home.

On the Friday before Halloween she threw a party for her students and their friends. Her apartment is tiny like ours and I think she said about 50 kids rotated through it. She had activities set up including bobbing for apples, face painting, sticking your hand in a box and touching some slimy eels, folding trick-or-treat bags and pumpkin carving. If the kids finished three of the five tasks, and said 'Trick or treat' in English they earned their treats. Rora is the princess in the picture below.
And here I am in my 'Gigi' costume (from Kiki's Delivery Service - in short, a black cat). I was in charge of the jack-o-lanterns. Now, this is the best part of Halloween, in my opinion, including the slimy insides of the pumpkins. But the kids were sooo grossed out. It was awesome. There was an audible gasp when we put the lighted candle inside. That was pretty cool too.
Here are the results. Pretty basic. But I was working free-hand.
Face painting. Naomi was excited about dressing up as Gigi (Kiki is her favorite movie) but she refused to wear the adorable ears I made or have the whiskers drawn on. She did let me paint her face, but the threw a fit and made me wipe it off five minutes or less later.
She did eat a lot of cake and candy, though.
Hope you all enjoyed your Halloweens, too.