Golden Week

Golden Week is a string of national holidays that, including the weekend, make about a week. Everyone in Japan has off for Golden Week, and by everyone I mean business men, schools, government agencies, etc. Not train station workers, and part time jobs in retail stores. It is the busiest time of year after New Years. While Emily and all them went to Tokyo to rough it out in hostels, park benches, and internet cafes, I took the more comfortable aproach and stayed home to hang out with my host family.

My parents brought me to a park and we had an all day outing, includin another delicious picnic meal. (They LOVE their picnics!). I worked a lot on catch-up with homework assignments and projects. On Tuesday we took a paid excursion to Shirakawa-Go, a 500 year old village on the northern coast. The town was still inhabbitted, and the houses still had thatched roofs- made for great opportunity for Otousan to take pictures. Unfortunatly, it took 6 hours to get there, I had to wake up at 6am, and we were only there for an hour and 15 minutes. Boooo~ Sometimes Japan confuses me, but by now I just shake my head and deal with it. We had bento lunches, and bento dinners on the bus. (Bentos are like bagged lunches.. except not bagged).