Teen Japan Themed BDay Party Ideas

My daughter will be turning 17 in February and in the summer o 2009 will be going to Japan for a 14 day student exchange program. She is wanting to have a Japan Themed Birthday party that will encompass both boys and girls. She will be having the girls spend the night. One of her ideas is to have a scavenger hunt and of course theme appropriate food. So far this is the only two ideas we can come up with that teens of that age would enjoy. If anyone has any ideas that would be greatly appreciated! We would like to get some food/scavenger hunt item ideas as well. Oh, we also thought to have the kids wear Japanese type clothing. Please send responses in english as I am unable to speak any other language. Thank you all in advance!

Melissa, go to the top of this Question Forum or to the top of your own thread and you'll see a "Search" devise. Type "birthday party" and you'll find lots of similar threads. In particular, the following is quite thorough;
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?1+6212

As mentioned in many of the other threads, birthday parties for teens and older is not that big in Japan as it is in say the U.S. or many parts of Western Europe. Typically they don't do anything special except to have a cake with their family. But of course, you can be creative and think about the many Japanese things you like and bring it into the party.

Have fun!

It would make a lot more sense to have a Japanese themed birthday party AFTER your daughter come back from Japan as she would know a lot more about Japan and could even bring back lots of cheap stuff from 100 yen stores. I was raised in Western Europe by the way and we never ever had birthday parties where we invited school chums. Only upper middle class families did that and they were very formal parties, with children in fancy clothes supervised by the host family butler, maids etc. There was definitely no games and no running around. We didn't have graduation parties either. Those were the days.

Well, as a mom of a 16 going on 17 I can relate to Melissa that it makes sense to do a party before going to Japan so that the birthday girl could be more motivated towards her trip and future studies. It might be even better if the daughter can take the initiative on the planning.

Maybe have a dress up like visual fashion (Search "visual kei" in google images), made mainstream in the West by Gwen Stefani's troup of Harajuku Girls. This kind of fashion can be fun for guys and girls, and you could proabably combine things you had at home with some bright make up, rather than going and buying a kimono, or worse, showing up in a bath robe (not a good look)!