day (and night) of the dead

Yesterday was awesome. The 7th annual Toronto Zombie Walk combined with a Zombie Party at Huron resulted in a day of zombie-fuelled fun. In terms of fancy dress (or costume, in Canadian), I was aiming for something different to the hundreds of generic zombies I'd envisioned. I decided on the "well dressed zombie" look:

Lots of grey, white and black paint later (and a dash of red), this is what I looked like:

(Note - I still haven't managed to get the red paint off of the collar. One of my favourite shirts too!)

We wandered to Kensington Market to catch the procession, and ended up getting a pint in a nice bar while we waited. This was when I realised how weird it actually was being dressed as a zombie.

Shortly after, a commotion seemed to be stirring outside the bar; we went out, and were confronted with a scene similar to the one below (this was actually taken just up the road):

This was when I realised how scary it would actually be to experience a zombie apocalypse. Even thousands of costume zombies was an unnerving sight (especially some of the "famous" zombies we saw (Jesus was my favourite (the first one; I saw 3))).

We got into character (lurching and grunting), then joined the tide of the undead and made our way through the streets of Toronto. It was hugely fun: uninfected people were taking photographs and everyone was trying to act sufficiently zombified as to attract their attention, people were frolicking and other such activities, and the wardens/security were dressed as Umbrella officers which was a nice touch (Umbrella is a fictional anti-zombie organisation from a video game for those who don't know!).

Although most of the crowd were generic zombies, some people had put a lot of effort into their outfits. Some a little too much. Here are my favourites:

And here's my least favourite (call the RSPCA!):

The walk went all around the back streets of Toronto, mostly around Bathurst area and through the annex. It finished in the alley next to Bathurst Station, and the huge amount of zombies in such a small space made for a really atmospheric moment. It was awesome.

Then, just as the walk came to an end, I saw this. Something that managed to out-awesome everything else I'd seen and taken part in thus far:

The Burger King and Jesus, two of the most important figures in history, in the same frame. As zombies.

After the walk we went back to Huron, making the most of our zombie attire on the way (looking and banging on windows, lurching, pretending to eat people's brains etc (the usual)). As we walked along Bloor Street, a Red Bull car pulled up, and was mobbed by zombies (zombies can detect free samples, you see). As a reward we all received a can of Red Bull, which I added to the tower of beer cans I was assembling as part of the Wizards drinking game (every can you drink, you sellotape it to the top of the previous can, until eventually you have an enormous tower of empties).

The party was good, although I'm not going to go into as much detail. Pumpkins were carved (I carved a tiny one about the size of an apple, and it was awesome), decorations were put up, zombies arrived, and festivities began.

I even got a kebab.