Category Archive for Fashion
Tokyo Goth Halloween parties, drag queen shows, club nights! Japan yokai festival, Gothic alt cyberpunk clubs.
Looking to attend Tokyo, Japan Halloween parties and Goth clubs in October 2026? Then welcome to my coffin club… you’re in the right graveyard!
My Gothic alternative friends will be putting on tons of parties in Tokyo, Japan this spooky season, including drag shows and cyberpunk clubs. Read on for the dates and info.
Halloween is creeping around again… I won’t be in Tokyo to celebrate, but here are photos from my Japanese All Hallow’s Eve adventures last year. (I did makeup inspired by the band KISS — glam metal guitarist Ace Frehley wears this bat-like design around his eyes.)
In chronological order, here are 4 upcoming events you can’t miss in the Tokyo area:
Oct 10-12, Yokai Festival: Tokyo’s Yokai Bon Odori fest is back in Tachikawa!
Hang with Japanese folk monsters and supernatural spirits at this 3-day matsuri! Yokai-maxx with kitsune foxes, headless children, devilish oni demons, one-eyed priest Hitotsume kozō and more at Yokai Bon Odori 2026. When: Oct 10, 11, 12 Where: Green Springs 2F Plaza (3-1 Midoricho, Tachikawa City – about a 40 min train from central areas of Tokyo) More info: @yokaibonodori IG + yokaibonodori.tokyo
Oct 17, Casket of Horrors: Drag extravaganza with Yukiro (performing as Nattmara) and friends!
Japan’s alt-horror drag haus is having a space-themed show featuring intergalactic glamatrons… Tokyo’s most ghoulish drag kings, queens and everything in between will do their very best to probe your orifices!
Haus von Schwarz presents: Casket of Horrors, Kabukicho in Space – †666th Anniversary Show!!
Date: Sat, Oct 17
Place: Shinjuku Heist Club (B2, 2 Chome−25−6, Kabukicho)
Time: 7pm
Get tix from @hausvonschwarz IG or https://linktr.ee/hausvonschwarz
Oct 18: Midnight Mess – Cyberpunk Club in Shinjuku!
Join Mistress Maya and her fellow creatures of the night at this Goth Cyberpunk club night. You’ll be trick or treated to cyber rope installation, drag queens, and bizarre artistic performances – and dance to dark industrial techno EDM.
When: Oct 18 at at Club ArcH Shinjuku. Details and pre-sale/reservation tickets at https://tiget.net/events/524439
Oct 24, 31 and more all month: Tokyo Decadance and Deca Bar
Tokyo Decadance is also having a slew of Halloween events throughout October, including a Halloween in Shibuya bash on Oct 24, and Decabar Super celebration on Halloween itself, Oct 31.
See the full calendar for Tokyo Decadance / Decabar events on their IG @decabar_official
This photo of Noveli and Lilith illustrates exactly how I felt last year after Halloween-maxxing in Tokyo! Below is a recap of the Goth alternative events and costume parties I attended last season, to give you a sense of what to expect in Oct 2026.
Yokai Bon Odori is one hell of a party. Last year, Yukiro and I yokai-maxxed with kitsune foxes, headless children, devilish oni demons, one-eyed priest Hitotsume kozō and more.
We were enthralled by the spooky vendors, artistic performances, makeup booths, and disco DJ sets.
The crowd went wild for the yokai-themed perfomers under a demonic red faced and horned oni mask!
So many fab handmade costumes, from traditional Japanese yokai folk monsters / spirits to new characters.
I was tickled to see a jiangshi or Chinese jumping ghost / zombie! He even has the yellow “sticky note” (magic Taoist spell on paper to control the dead) stuck to him.
Many of the Koenji, Tokyo yokai parade regulars were there as well.
Share this post if you’d like to join a yokai parade in Japan! (For video of the yokai parade in Koenji, see my viral video here.)
Yokai Bon Odori 2026 festival
When: Oct 10, 11, 12
Where: Green Springs 2F Plaza (3-1 Midoricho, Tachikawa City – about a 40 min train from central areas of Tokyo)
More info: @yokaibonodori + yokaibonodori.tokyo
Watch my yokai festival in Tokyo reel from last year for a sense of the electronica performers, costumes and vibe!
The Koenji yokai parade was fab too – see photos and video of the Japan yokai parade here!
Japanese folk spirits, demons, tricksters and ghouls added to the Halloween spirit by marching down the shopping street by Koenji station. Their handmade costumes of kappa, oni, kitsune and custom creatures are spooktacular. Many participants are part of the alternative/Gothic subculture in Japan & host regular yokai events.
Looking for Halloween Goth events in Tokyo? Japan’s alt-horror drag icons are back onstage on Oct 17 in Shinjuku! Join mother Yukiro Dravarious (drag queen Nattmara) and Haus von Schwarz, and get beamed up for a space-themed drag show.
Special guest Noveli will be returning — she always delivers dark and passionate performances that stay with you long afterwards.
This one was to the guttoral Latin groans of Diamanda Galas in her song Sono L’Antichristo! The cock-crucifix… yass.
Speaking of saints and sinners… Last year, we were treated to voguing by Stefani St. Slut.
Julia Your Makeup is Terrible got down in the spirit of trick or treating.
Langley Chi Chi is serving schoolgirl…
While Angel Heart is old school glam with darkness beneath!
Such a great show by Haus von Schwarz. Don’t miss them this year on Oct 17 at Shinjuku Heist club.
The devil may be lurking in the audience…
Our Goth alt subcultures crew always comes out for these drag shows.
Hope you can make it to their Halloween drag performance this year!
Haus von Schwarz presents: Casket of Horrors, Kabukicho in Space – †666th Anniversary Show
Date: Sat, Oct 17
Place: Shinjuku Heist Club (B2, 2 Chome−25−6, Kabukicho)
Time: 7pm
Get tix from @hausvonschwarz IG or https://linktr.ee/hausvonschwarz
The day after, Oct 18, Mistress Maya is hosting her regular Cyberpunk Club at Club Arch. Here are images from her Midnight★Mess event last Halloween season, where I was a special guest… along with this giant dancing panda bear! Full details and tickets here.
Midnight Mess’ events are out of this world — Maya’s attention to detail has been impeccable since 2002 (it is Tokyo’s longest running Goth club).
Dance to the dark sounds of industrial, EDM, techno, new wave, Gothic and future-pop.
The bizarre performances are always to die for… last year, Duncan Whom did an unravelling dance with this spooktastic mask.
Panda-chan joined in on the dancing and musical performances.
Lily, a life-like doll, also wheeled by. She seems to be enjoying the show.
Mistress Maya did a shibari / rope tying and dom performance with whips and hot wax from candles. This year, you can watch her Cyber-rope Installation.
Gothic divas represent.
Noveli wowed the crowd with a Dia de los Muertos drag performance.
Kiki, the designer of Kikirara Shoten, brought her velvet-lined coffin for undead guests to lie in.
As Nattmara, Yukiro strutted the stage and nailed all the tricks.
The best performance of the night goes to the cleanup crew!
Gothic/Industrial club Midnight★Mess since 2002 – attend the Cyberpunk Club on Oct 18 at Club Arch Shinjuku! Full details and tickets here.
Finally, here was the scene for last year’s Tokyo Decadance Halloween.
Several floors of varying vibes, from visual kei performers to Dark Dimension’s Goth industrial tech.
Last year, the bash took place at Shinjuku Ohjo building.
Adrien le Danois, Porco and other longtime Decabar collaborators will be hosting alt events all October. The major ones are a Shibuya bash on Oct 24, and Decabar Super celebration on Halloween, Oct 31.
To see all the Tokyo Decadance / Decabar events coming up, visit their IG @decabar_official
Noveli is always giving Goth demon queen.
Mistress Maya and Ricky DJed on the Dark Dimension floor.
And DJ SiSEN held it down in another room. Love his carnival glow.
Visual Kei star Kaya (迦夜), vocalist of Schwarz Stein, dazzled us with her stage presence. Long live VK.
Candy Spooky Theater and more performed – such a throwback to my formative years in the Harajuku subculture.
Fab costumes and vendors at Tokyo Decadance Halloween.
Adrien le Danois as the ringmaster, doing some last-min fixes to the venue (talk about a haunted house).
Check out my iPhone snaps from the event with friends, as well as video clips, in my @lacarmina IG reel here.
Monstrous makeup skills! Japan remains one of the best places in the world to celebrate Halloween and do all things Goth, so I hope you’ll get to check out some of these events. (See the top of the post for what’s coming up.)
Also, sorry for the slowdown in blogs — I’ve been traveling almost nonstop since May, but I’m now back and grinding. Lots to share from my recent travels, so I promise to post more articles here soon — and you can see previews on my Instagram @LaCarmina. (I really need to catch up, as there will be some once-in-a-lifetime adventures in the next months… let’s keep the momentum going!)
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Writer for LA Times Travel studios! Grand Egyptian Museum Goth artifacts & gift shop, Giza Pyramids Sphinx guide.
Ready for more Goth adventures from Egypt, including the new Grand Egyptian Museum? I’ve got you in this new post.
First, an announcement… I’ve joined LA Times Travel studios as a regular contributor! I will be writing about my travels worldwide for this Los Angeles Times vertical, in an ongoing column — you can read my travel journalism here.
My first article was inspired by my recent return to Egypt… a joy to be with the Pyramids and Sphinx again, in the revamped Giza Plateau! Keep reading for plenty of tips on how to see the ancient tombs without battling the heat and tourists, so you can get unobstructed pics like these.
I flew back to Cairo mostly to see the brand spanking new Grand Egyptian Museum, which was as mesmerising and spooky as I hoped it would be… Read on for my guide to seeing ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, death gods like Anubis, ankhs and more at the newly-opened GEM!
This time around, I only stayed in Giza for a few days (see my review of my luxe hotel located across from the Sphinx). On my first trip in 2019, Yukiro and I went all around the country — you can see all our tips for exploring Egypt on a guided tour here.
This has been a good career year for me… I’m now a journalist for Los Angeles Times Travel Studios! As a regular contributor, I’ll be sharing stories from my fabulous offbeat travels, which you can read here. (I will also soon be speaking at TBEX Asia in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Aug 22 — see the travel conference details here.)
First up: a guide to Grand Egyptian Museum’s gift shop, which IMO is the best in the world. I write: “Rather than hawking racks of microplastic detritus, Grand Egyptian Museum is a wonderland of handmade, natural, artisan goods evoking the splendors of Nefertiti and Cleopatra.”
Read my first article about the Grand Egyptian Museum’s epic gift shop here on LA Times.
From sculptures of underworld jackal god Anubis to canoptic jars and ankh robes… GEM Shop is arguable also the best Goth store in the world right now!
Ankh soap or handmade crochet Anubis dolls, anyone? 99.9% of products are handmade in Egypt, with proceeds supporting the museum and NGOS / local artisans.
You can’t enter the museum’s GEM Shop without a ticket to the galleries, or preview the items / buy them online… so you’ve just got to come.
I spent way too much at GEM Shop (but hey, it was for journalism research and for a good cause, right?) Was tempted by these pharonic Farah Omar silk scarves, and King Tut memorabilia.
Thanks for supporting my travel writing! See my debut LA Times Travel ETA piece, “Giza’s New Grand Egyptian Museum Swaps the Mass-Produced Souvenirs for a Sprawling, Gorgeous Artisan Emporium.”
The museum is right by Egypt’s Pyramids and Sphinx, which are as great as ever. The ancient Giza Plateau has mega-modernized since my first visit. In 2025, builders replaced the old Mena House entrance with a sleek gateway on Fayoum Desert Road, and introduced air conditioned electric shuttle buses. Now, you can hop on / off right at the 4500-year-old tombs of Egyptian pharoahs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure!
Tips to make your Giza visit extra fabulous: Hire my lovely female guide, Sherine Ramadan! Visiting this World Wonder with an expert lets you make the most of the experience, and prevents vendors from hassling you. (To book her, contact ramadansherine @ hotmail dot com or What’s App + 201097104413)
– Get a timed ticket from the official website in advance (don’t fall for a spoof site!)
– Wear close-toed shoes as there is hot sand, stones and sandflies
– Go as early as possible to avoid the heat and tourists (and get unobstructed photos with the Great Sphinx and pyramids) –
The descendents of Anubis the jackal death god are guarding the pyramids at Giza Plateau! Just the tip of the Pyramid of Khafre retains its original limestone casing.
This was my second visit to the pyramids. I didn’t go inside the great one this time, but had fun exploring the rocks (and since I went so early, there were no people in the background).
Love the sleek new upgrades to Giza plateau. One of my fav moments: drinking an iced coffee from Mulliri while looking out at the pyramids!
If you’ve visited Giza, what were your impressions — and do you have travel advice to add?
All right, time for a tour of the spookiest exhibits at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. Dream come true to wander the long-awaited museum, which opened late last year.
Felt at home with the spooky sarcophagi! Had to recreate the infamous Goth death metal pose from my previous trip, with the ancient Egyptian stone coffins. (The one on the far left has indentations that indicate the shape of knees!)
The museum’s sprawling galleries take an entire day (or more ) to explore. Gallery 10 is the Goth-est, with a collection of mummies and their sarcophagus final resting places.
Wonder if any of these will unleash a curse…
Grand Egyptian Museum holds over a hundred thousand antiquities, including gargantuan statues of Anubis the jackal, sphinxes, animal-headed gods and queens…
Of course, I took photos of the darkest elements like serpents, death gods, and canoptic jars to hold the mummy’s organs.
Tips for visiting the museum: Get advance tickets for first entry at 8:30am. Quickly make your rounds of GEM for unobstructred photos & a sense of the galleries (I then took my time to explore).
See King Tutankhamun’s magnificent burial relics, which are displayed here in full. This big-eared Anubis statue was to die for.
The museum’s galleries are arranged by era, and you can join a tour (but I prefered to go around on my own).
Ankhs galore! What would you most like to see at Egypt’s Grand Museum?
The architecture of the Grand Egyptian Museum is worth seeing in its own right… You’ve got to visit in the flesh to fully appreciate the dazzling scale and use of light and geometry.
Outside, these Sekhmet lion-headed goddess statues frame a fountain, staircase and courtyard.
Towering statues look over the high ceilinged entrance…
… and you’ll find cute sphinxes (lion bodies with human heads) all around.
The GEM is now well protected with security — when Yukiro and I visited the old Egyptian Museum in Cairo, we were miffed by how children could touch the Sphinxes! Now, nobody dare disrespect the old gods.
I’m still thinking of the dream-like walk up the massive entrance stairs (past giant statues of pharoahs and animal-head gods) to a picture window overlooking the Great Pyramids! (There are side escalators too, for accessibility).
As wrote for LA Times Travel studios, “Designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, the Grand Egyptian Museum began construction in 2005 and finally opened in November 2025. (By comparison, it also took about 20 years to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu… 4500 years ago.) The sprawling modernist architecture uses triangular forms and sand colored concrete to mirror the surrounding pyramids and desert. GEM’s 130 foot tall glass roofed entrance court is guarded by a colossal statue of Ramses II.”
Felt like being in liminal dream/fantasy like the novel Piranesi, wandering these steps and gazing upon a capital of Hathor (cow goddess), obelisks and sarcophagi.
King Tut was so extra that he was buried in multiple gilded sarcophagi, like a nesting doll! (The museum showcases the stone sarcophagus that held three nested coffins inside four golden wooden shrines).
King Tutankhamun’s burial tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings. His canoptic alabaster jars are also a tribute to himself — the lids are carved with his likeness, lip to lip.
I took a million photos at the Grand Egyptian Museum — as a lover of ancient Egyptology, this was my happy place. Here’s a statue of god Ptah, King Ramsesses II and goddess Sekhmet the lion.
Be sure to get advance entry tickets and arrive early so you can hang here all day. There are restaurants and cafes inside (like Nahr for Mediterranean healthy food), and save Egyptian pounds for the gift store.
Blown away by the design choices. This picture window looking out at the Pyramids… ahh.
Ankh ankh… I think you can see why Egypt (Giza/Cairo) is one of my top Goth destinations!
Google “La Carmina LA Times” or go to my Los Angeles Times profile page to see more of my travel writing about the Grand Egyptian Museum and its impressive gift shop. Wouldn’t you love to spend a day here? More photos underneath, so click to reveal…
LA CARMINA
