Golden Week

Golden week is a glorious time when holidays converge one after another to give the Japanese some much needed vacation days. Golden week happened two weeks ago but the memory still lingers.


On the first day off Kim and I went to our local Ito Yokado which is like a super Wal-mart and mini mall in one. To our surprise at the massive store that day were the super sentai heroes to rescue weary shoppers, young and old alike, with their costumed antics. When I happened by the spandex clad warriors I stopped to look. Every sentai member stopped waving and strutting about to inspect the white weirdo though their glinty visors. This was by far the most hilarious gaijin gawk I’ve yet experienced. Situations like having a gang of tight and shiny jumpsuit wearing guys thinks that I’m the oddball and crane their necks and do double and triple takes as I walk past them is just another unique and awesome Japanese experience.


We went to a small city called Kazo for Kid’s Day to visit friends who took us to see the world’s biggest koinobori, a jumbo flying carp. Kazo is known for the manufacture of koinoboris and handmade udon. I think every city in Japan is known for a specialty food, famous landmark and or products. This is great because anywhere I travel in Japan I get to eat some new and delicious foods.

For dinner I drank too much sake, freaking topping off the cup every time I take a sip doesn’t help me keep control. Our party of six was seated in a small sliding door room in a traditional Japanese sushi restaurant. My drunkenness coupled with my body size and natural clumsiness combined with the narrow confines of the room led to some embarrassing mishaps. I kicked the door so hard I thought I broke the damn thing, twice. Good thing they look more fragile then they are. I try not to be such a bumbling ogre when I’m in Japan to prevent people from having a negative impression of me and all big Americans, but sometimes I just gotta be me.

Kim and I also went to Kamakura during Golden Week. “Holy crap you went Kamakura during Golden Week are you crazy!?” was the general response I received when I told people where I went over the holiday break. This is because Kamakura is one of the top destinations for people during Golden Week and is notorious for jam packed crowds. This year was no different.

On the local train the staff were shoving people with sticks to cram as many riders into each stuffed train car as possible. It wasn’t comfortable. On the exhausting ride back not one but TWO freaking obasans were leaning on me. Obasans are light and frail and only about waist high but two of them inclining their entire body weight onto me still hurt like hell.

Kamakura has some amazing temples and a magnificent colossal Buddha statue. Their specialty food is sweet potato. So we loaded up on sweet potato ice cream, sweet potato croquettes, sweet potato chips and sweet potato rice. It’s been two weeks but I’m still sick of sweet potato.

Kim took a breather and was eating an apple on the stairs as I made my way to the alter of the last temple of the day. While I was walking back down the stairs I saw a hawk swoop down and crash into something. As I’m jogging down the stairs to see what happened I see Kim’s apple bouncing away. A slightly shocked Kim tells me, “That hawk tried to steal my apple!” An astonished elderly couple backed away from Kim like she was cursed. The hawk, with the ripped paper towel from the apple firmly in its talons, was doing a victory lap circling safely above us. I used some spare tissues to pick up the dirty half eaten apple, but since there is NEVER a trashcan when you need one in Japan I had to carry it for half an hour before disposing of it.

Golden Week was fun and quite memorable. Japanese Power Rangers gaping at me, seeing the jumbo koinobori, eating interesting foods, drunken antics, and viewing serene temples with hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of other tourists. A typical Japanese vacation.