Golden Week is a string of four national holidays that end up accounting for a week off of work. April 29th is Showa day - a day honoring the birthday of the emperor who go reigned before, during and after World War II. Wikipedia says it is a day to reflect on the recovery Japan made after World War II and to think of the future. May 3rd is Constitution Memorial Day, May 4th is Greenery day (or nature day). And May 5th is Children's Day. With so many holidays in such close proximity, many people just get the whole week off. We weren't quite so lucky, (we worked this Thursday and Friday) but we did get last Wednesday off and we will get Monday and Tuesday off for a four day weekend.
Today we have been taking it easy and getting our apartment cleaned up. Now that Russell works at home entropy seems to set in pretty hard and heavy -but so far we have been good about cleaning up on Saturdays. Since the weather is GORGEOUS again it is also laundry day. Last weekend it was raining heavily, so we waited a week and this week we could barely fit all of our laundry out on our porch to dry. We were creative, though, and it all fit in the end.
While we were waiting for our laundry to finish we had coffee and lunch at Cafe Kei (with the super friendly old ladies). I love that place. Lunch was super tasty and the ladies that run it are awesome.
We are planning to go to Kyoto for at least one day, maybe two of Golden Week. Kyoto is an hour or two from here, but if we make a day of it, we should have lots of time to wander around. Apparently it is going to be crammed full of tourists, but so it goes. I'm just glad we don't have to find a hotel for the night!
If you are trying to figure out the random photo, it is downtown at night. We were coming home and I thought it was pretty so I snapped a photo. It has nothing to do with the post.
Going Kobe
For the 29th of April, my school hosted "Going Kobe." As far as I can tell, it is a large music event sponsored by several local schools (or maybe just mine) to attract high-schoolers who then get the chance to see the school and how cool it is for hosting such an event. Aha. It is also a chance for the students at this Tourism school to practice a variety of Event Planning activities like hocking cookies and guidebooks. Actually, there is a great deal of effort that goes into many aspects of the planning and execution of the event, and the students get a lot of good experience.
Some time last year one of the staff members at the university started booking bands - and from what I can tell, these are fairly well known bands in Japan - definitely commercial groups and not just garage bands. The crowd on Wednesday was impressive. Russell and I went around noon, had lunch at the food stands and then perched ourselves on the balcony where we could see the show and the crowd without being sucked into the action. Plus, there was ice cream. :D
We saw at least two bands that drew huge crowds of fans. You could tell a group was popular when people started gathering a half hour early. Then, when the music started, a sea of people would rush forward to the stage. The music was very fun - kind of rock/pop - and the crowd was fascinating. It was kind of like a mosh-pit (there was plenty of crowd surfing) but they would seemingly randomly do very organized things... for example, circles would open up in the middle of the crowd and then everyone would start running around the circle together - imagine a whirlpool. I think this was occurring because a group of friends would plan together and then clump in the middle of the crowd only to spread out into a circle and push people back. Once the crowd saw what was going on, they would back up to accommodate the circle, and then when the organizers started running around the circle, the crowd would all jump in and create the whirlpool. Fascinating.
It also turns out that brightly colored towels (think south american soccer game) are also a crucial part of the live music scene in Japan. All of the students had one around their neck and at certain times they would spin the towels as fast as they could above their heads. Another impressive image was during one particularly popular song about sunflowers. The singer asked everyone to link up (which they clearly knew was going to happen) and everyone instantly formed these long braids of people with arms on each others shoulders. Occasionally there would be a circle of friends linked up together, but for the most part everyone just grabbed the person next to them. Would that ever happen at a concert in the States? Even if the audience knew to expect it? I'm not sure it would... Russell and I tried to take pictures, but you really had to be there to appreciate it.
Hopefully more Golden Week adventures are to come.
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