In Japan, there is a special period called the Golden Week in May. Normally many public holidays are close together so people tend to take long break like one entire week (one week is VERY long for Japanese people 😉 ) including some paid vacation.
But this year in 2019, you can take 10 consecutive days off with just public holidays from April 27th to May 6th. Weekends are included, of course. This year the new imperial era “Reiwa” starts so we get to have some extra public holidays. Let’s see what holidays there are. (Not that you care so much as long they are holidays.)
- April 27th Saturday
- April 28th Sunday
- April 29th Showa Day
- April 30th Public holiday
- May 1st Accession of new emperor
- May 2nd Public holiday
- May 3rd Constitution Memorial Day
- May 4th Saturday, Greenery Day
- May 5th Sunday, Children’s Day
- May 6th Children’s Day (observed)
April 30th, May 1st and 2nd are new holidays for this year.
This means everyone in Japan gets to take vacation during this period. In general, the Golden Week is usually the most crowded season to travel in Japan. So I prefer not to do much during the Golden Week. Can you imagine what it would be like this year??
But since it will be 10 consecutive days, I wanted to go somewhere!! Even if I started to look last year, it was already impossible… 🙁 Everything is tripled, flight tickets, accommodations, etc. It feels pointless to pay three times as much for the same value, or not even the same value with everywhere being so crowded with tons of people.
So this year, I have no plan whatsoever!!! Will I regret it? Maybe. But I will make sure I will have different activities with my husband and my son so we won’t end up saying “What did we do for the past 10 days?”
I will try to find local places and events to go with kids. I will keep you posted if I find something interesting! For those of you like us who failed to plan a nice trip to tropical beach or exotic place this Golden Week, stay tuned!
