I managed to carve a pumpkin last week (fortuitously planned before the release of the best game ever, Fallout 3).  It’s supposed to be a classic Corean Hahoe mask of an elder yangban  man, or an educated aristocrat with lots of wrinkles, pictured below.

[Using pictures of a younger me is uber-cheezy but
older me is too lazy to take a new one today.]

Amy carved her usual Hello Kitty pumpkin.  (Side note:  Today is Hello Kitty’s official birthday, November 1st.  She’s thirty-four and still just three apples high, or some bullshit like that.)

 
[The date on the camera is a bit off]

 Sun Su is more of a traditionalist when it comes to pumpkin design.  (He drew it, Amy carved it.)

Ooseung’s pumpkin (pic below, lower right) is part of her minimalist phase.

We started going out with the gang during daylight, and by gang I mean a dozen Corean cousins and relatives – we had more adults than kids.  Sun Su’s costume made a few smaller kids (and their mommies) cry.  That’s my boy!

 Fortunately Ooseung’s cute little pink dog costume was the yin to Sun Su’s yang.  In reality though, Ooseung is the one you have to watch out for.  No, really, a four year old girl’s conscience is about as real as Tinkerbell.

 From the start I was reminiscing of the good ol’ days when we used to start trick or treating when it got dark, without parental supervision, at track record pace.  But it got cold and dark pretty quick, so we said “screw this, we’ll eat our own candy” and went home after a couple of streets.  Although some of us yangbans were tempted to revisit the house with the girl in the slutty college girl costume – oh wait, that wasn’t a costume.

All in all, this Halloween raiding party got some pretty good loot.  Good thing we had the loot-ninja on our side.

 Epilogue:  That night, Sun Su’s very first baby tooth came out.  The new grown-up tooth is already jutting out.  It was kind of exciting (especially trying to make sure he didn’t freak out about it) but part of me is like “wait, slow down, he’s the perfect age right now.”

 Sun Su got a couple bucks from the Tooth Fairy.  Hey, times are tough, it’s a recession.  Ooseung got a gutful of bile because she didn’t get any money (she just likes it because she doesn’t have it) – what did I tell you about the four-year old conscience.