Golden Week

Well, well. Hot on the heels of my getting sick (and subsequently better) Golden Week is upon us. Let me give you a breakdown:

April 29: Shouwa Day

This was a holiday made to celebrate Emperor Shouwa's birthday. When Emperor Shouwa died in 1989, this day was renamed to Greenery Day. Then Greenery Day was moved in 1997 and this became Shouwa Day.

May 3: Constitution Memorial Day

To celebrate the 1947 constitution of Japan.

May 4: Greenery Day

Before 1997, this was just known as kokumin no kyūjitsu (citizen's holiday). In Japan, law states that any day that falls between two national holidays shall be declared a holiday. Then Greenery Day was moved to this day from April 29.

May 5: Children's Day (also known as Boy's Day)

This is a day to celebrate the growth and happiness of children. If there is a boy in your house, you fly carp flags and display samurai dolls as symbols of raising a strong and healthy boy. This usually marks the end of Golden Week. Except this year...

May 6: furikae kyūjitsu (transfer holiday)

A second Japanese law states that if a national holiday falls on a Sunday, the next working day (in this case a Wednesday) shall be a holiday.

All of this basically just means that the entirety of Japan shuts down for a week. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about a 5-day weekend. But so is everyone else. Time to take some sightseeing trips.

Speaking of which, I took a nice trip today. Rokuda-san invited me and a few others to his vacation house in Hinase. I rode from my place to Hinase with Yamauchi-sensei and her sister. That was fun, because her sister doesn't speak great English and kept repeating things I said. We met at the Hinase Marina and set out. The day was especially awesome because we spent the majority of the day on Rokuda-san's sweet boat.







We went to the house for a delicious lunch. Rokuda-san fired up the grill and made some chicken, hot dogs, corn, and a bunch of other stuff. I wandered the beach in front of the house for a while and found a cool old oyster farming processing plant. Hinase is pretty well known for it's oysters, and the bamboo fishing rafts were all over the place.







After lunch we set out again. I had no idea where we were headed, but I knew we were getting back in the boat. Of course I wasn't going to complain. All of us went out. This included Yamauchi-sensei and her sister, Encho-sensei and her husband, a couple who's names I can't remember, Rokuda-san and his wife, and three of their kids and their niece. And me. It was great. We took an hour ride to Ushimado and the Limani Hotel for dessert and coffee. The hotel was cool because it was quite literally on the water. Boats just docked and went up the steps into the hotel. I ate some kind of chocolate thing. I don't remember the name, but it was good. And coffee was a welcome addition to the afternoon, as beers from lunch were making me sleepy.







After the hotel, we went back to Hinase and home. It was fun. I don't really have any plans for the remainder of the holiday week, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.