Golden Week, part II

Well, Golden Week is now about 3 weeks ago and I finally got my act together to post the photos, hallelujah... The term seems to promise 7 days of bliss & splendour, but in effect it's applied to the period containing 3 consecutive public holidays: Consitution Memorial Day (May 3), Greenery Day (May 4) and Children's Day (May 5). Many Japanese take time off on the intervening work days, which makes this the longest vacation period of the year for them! Yep, a holiday lasting longer than one week is seen as a decadent extravagance here, despite the fact that most employees actually have extra days stored up. No wonder Vaughan's supervisors were in shock last December when he told them we were off to Vietnam for three full weeks. The horror ;-)! This week of leisure also implies that every man & his dog travel in Japan or in its neighbouring countries, resulting in a move of the masses & maniacal prices. Since neither Vaughan nor I are big fans of crowds + we're on a semi-tight budget, we decided to kick back in Fukuoka and enjoy the holiday atmosphere here. On the Wednesday we checked out the Donkatsu Festival, one of the biggest Golden Week festivals in Japan, with a day-long parade (see picture above), music performances & endless rows of foodstalls. The 100 000 visitors gave it a bit of a frantic feel, but it was still great to discover something new :-).

Two days later it was time for our long-awaited and much-discussed road trip to Takachiho Gorge with Yasuko & Yukino! Yukino claims to love driving and we certainly put that statement to the test, because the gorge is located about 4 hours south of Fukuoka. Leaving the city behind and soaking up some fresh country air seemed to do us all good at the start, but later on in the day some passengers got a a bit unwell... No surprises that one of them was me, yet I'm sure the drivers behind us weren't expecting a foreign girl throwing up on the highway! That setback didn't ruin an otherwise pleasant day though (maybe one tip for next time: take the parasol & don't eat that chicken kebab!).

Don't these boats look lovely? Alas, we didn't even get near one 'cause there was a 4-hour (!) waiting time. Gotta love public holidays in densely populated countries.

Vaughan's speedy stone-hopping left several Japanese onlookers open-mouthed, probably because they regard nature as something to be looked at, not engaged in. I have to admit: in that respect I'm quite Japanese...

A 10-minute drive from the gorge lies an important shrine, so we stopped there briefly to have a look. My pictures of the building didn't work out -too dark-, but I thought the purifying area was worthy of a photo. The Japanese certainly seem to believe that you can never have enough images of cute (kawaii) characters, whatever the situation!