What Is Golden Week In Japan?
What is Golden Week?
In Japan, Golden Week is a seven day period with four national holidays within it. These four national holidays are Showa Day, Constitution Day, Greenery Day, and Children’s Day. Golden Week came to be due to the passage of the National Holiday Laws in 1984 which made nine official holidays, including the ones listed previously.
Due to four national holidays being celebrated within a span of a week, Japan’s leisure and entertainment industries saw an increase in demand and revenue. Seeing this revenue spike, a managing director from Daiei Film Co. called this week “Golden Week”, inspired by a Japanese radio term “golden time” that refers to a time with the highest listener ratings. Thus, “Golden Week” came into existence!
Why is Golden Week Celebrated?
While Golden Week itself is not a holiday, many people view this time period as a chance to take time off to go travel, spend time with family and friends, or just relax and recoup at home.
So, Golden Week is celebrated to pay respect to the different holidays contained within the period, but it also welcomed as a chance to take some time off from work to enjoy ones self.
When is Golden Week?
Golden Week normally starts on April 29th and goes until May 5th. The days of the week that these holidays fall on will depend on the current calendar year. However, for upcoming 2022, Golden Week will be from Friday, April 29th to Thursday, May 5th.
Is Golden Week a Good Time to Visit Japan?
Golden Week may not be a great time to visit Japan for tourists as during this time tourists will deal with not only other groups of tourists, but also Japanese citizens who are looking to travel. This creates a large demand for transportation and can crowd places such as airports, subways, and bus stations.
Popular tourist attractions can also become very difficult to access, due to the increase in travelers, resulting in longer wait times to enter places with limited capacity, difficulty in finding seating at popular restaurants, or being unable to purchase popular souvenirs.
If possible, planning a trip to Japan when it is not Golden Week might be the best choice for tourists from outside Japan.
What Can Tourists Do During Golden Week?
If you do decide to visit Japan during Golden Week, there is plenty to do! In addition to the many tourist attractions that can be found in Tokyo, Kyoto, or other Japanese cities, you can also visit temples or festivals that are held for the holidays that fall within Golden Week, such as Children’s Day.
For Children’s Day, displaying carp streamers is common and many tourists enjoy seeing all the flying carp streamers. Normally, you can find popular carp streamer festivals held throughout cities in Japan.
In addition, this time of year is great to visit outdoor areas such as Yoyogi Park, Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree, explore one of the many Tokyo neighborhoods, or visit the popular temples in Kyoto.
No matter what you choose to do, Japan is rich with culture and unique experiences, so you are almost always guaranteed a grand time!