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.

Drill Time

Japanese schools have many kinds of emergency drills in place in order to safeguard the future of their precious children. After all the ever dwindling child population of Japan has the burden of supporting the massive elderly population who are growing older and more demanding by the day.

I experienced an earthquake drill at the Love School. When the alarm sounds kids don’t hide under their desks like in America, nor do they line up in an orderly fashion like one would expect of the Japanese. No, instead the children and teachers burst out of their rooms screaming bloody murder and flailing about in mock terror. When I asked the principal what should I do during the drill she simply told me, “run!”

At Kim’s junior high there was a fire drill a few months back. The first couple hours of the day were wasted as no student was paying attention to anything save the anticipation for the upcoming drill. When the alarm finally rang the mad dash of students bolt out of the school yelling “fire fire!” while pushing and trampling over the weak, small, and unsuspecting

Outside firefighters are giving safety lectures to the students and faculty. After the speeches the firefighters let the students try out the fire extinguishers and even set up bullseye targets for them to shoot down. Unfortunately with the entire student body and visitors watching the nervous kids forced into participating had terrible aim and missed the targets. If there really is a fire at the junior high I hope nobody scrutinizes the kids too closely or they’ll never put it out.

The last drill is if a crazy criminal with a knife or a kidnapper/molester breaks into the school. Just like the other drills the kids burst out of the rooms screaming for their lives yelling, “help me” “save me” and “I want to live!” At Rural School #1 where I experienced the kidnapper drill some of the children bring panic buttons that emit a horrible shriek. Of course on the day of the drill EVERY freaking student has one. When the policeman acting as the criminal “breaks” into the school the children shriek, panic buttons wail, and a thunderous stampede roars past me down the hall. Like a cannon going off in my ear, yes it was that loud.

Don’t trust strangers damn it.


Especially when they are trying to get you in their car to find the train station like this creepy man. Rule #1: If there is a wafting purple aura of pure evil surrounding a car it’s time to run away.

To combat against intruders teachers get to use a blunt edged double-pronged staff to push away the criminals. The only defense versus a crazy man with a knife for the frail women and elderly men of the elementary schools are these pushy staffs. However, a few enterprising teachers grabbed brooms instead and the wizened vice principal busted out a wooden kendo sword that he brandished menacingly toward the phony kidnapper. The burly policeman acted like the pushy staffs were holding him back, but then he would move and easily throw them off. Hopefully any child predators visiting Rural School #1 will be slow, weak and stupid.

Gotta keep the pushy staffs on hand by the green tea dispenser in case of a break in.

The thing that amazed me the most about the criminal invasion drill is that the students ran outside without changing their shoes. Oh my god wearing indoor shoes in the dirt outside!? It must really be an emergency!