Italy Journey during the golden week

I visited Verona, Venice, and Florence in Italy during recent Golden Week.

This year is the 30th anniversary of marriage with my wife and we took longer vacation than usual.
This was the second time to visit Italy in 10 years. In the previous visit, I missed so many places to visit and things to do. In stead of latest vist, I have studied more about Italy and have learned some Italian phrases.

The reason why I chose Verona, Venice and Florence is because these cities have their own specific characteristics with tourism spots and activities. Nevertheless, they have a lot of historical heritages to be appreciated.

I stayed at an apartment in Verona, close to the House of Juliette, as in the drama of "Romeo and Juliette" by Shakespeare.  The House is not so gorgeous as the apartment where I stayed, but it is big enough to make us understand that the family was rich.

 The center building is the apartment where I stayed in Verona for two nights.

This is the living room of the apartment where I stayed.
The compartment is 3 bedrooms altogether and I used one room with old wooden door.

My room has this wall paint on the celling.

This is the House of Juliette and a tiny balcony is in the left.
Romeo might have climbed up the fence in the left.






It looks 3venues with 3 floors building.  It is made of block, neither of marbles nor limestones.  That means the family was not super rich.

This is the castle of Vecchio and is famous with the wall pictures

The next city is Venice and I will post it on the next post. (to be continued)

Children's Day

May 5th is Children's day, used to be a boy's festival, just like a girl's festival on March 3rd, to celebrate or wish children's growth and to thank for their mothers.

According to WikiPedia, a boy's festival seems to have begun 800 years ago to wish the family will be succeeded by sons.

(see http://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/端午/)

Many families decorate samurai armors as below; dedicating special rice cakes. There are two types: one is called "Kashiwamochi", covered with oak grass, and sweet mushed black beans- inside; the other is called "Chimaki", covered with bamboo grass.

For kids, it seems more fun to have snack time to eat "Kashiwamochi" and "Chimaki", especially for me.

The first photo is the full set of the decoration, and it is almost 2m height.

The photo below is the real samurai armors.

The left photo is a tiny decoration in my house.
This is located on a piano and just 30 cm height.

May 3rd: Constitutions Day

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%86%B2%E6%B3%95%E8%A8%98%E5%BF%B5%E6%97%A5

Constitution Day

May 3rd is a national holiday, called Constitution Day, and has been set for the memorial of the new constitution of Japan.

Accoding to Wikipedia, the specific date to be enforced was an issue among the cabinet in1946.

May 1st had already been set for "May Day" (similar to the Lavor Day in western countries), even though it was not a national holiday,  then May 5th came up  as the next alaternative date however, it has been celebrated as Boys Festival for long time, even though this day had not been set for a national holiday until 1948, the Cabinet seemed to worry about gender issue.  Then, the last alternative was May 3rd and would announce at November 3,  which used to be celebrated as Meiji Empelor's birthday (Meiji Empelor Memorial Day) before 1945.

It seems to be set intentionally that this process to decide the promulgated date of the new constitution so as to meet the date of Meiji Empelor Memorial Day and to preserve this day deep into the people's minds.

This above is my personal feeling and I was wondering if General Headquaters looked over to promulgate the new constitution on the Memorial Day of Meiji Empelor.

In other sense, it was a very intelligent procedure to discuss the enforcement date first.

Once the enfoecemt date would be set, then the promulgation date would be fixed.

The Golden Week in Japan

This calender is from timeanddate.com.

From the end of April to the first week of May is called " the Golden Week" in Japan.

We have consecutive national holidays and many people may combine paied vacations to national holidays in that week, then comes out the long vacation about a week.

This year, April 29th, Wednesday, is "Showa day"and May 3rd through May 6th, Sunday through Wednesday, are also national holidays, so if a person takes paid vacations from Thirsday to Friday twice, he or she gets 12 days vacation.

I have already touched upon April 29th "Showa day" and May 4th "Midori no Hi; Greenery day" in my previous post, please check it out.  So let me explain the rest of national holidays, from May 3rd to May 6th.

May 3rd and May 5th are also national holidays but May 6th is not always a national holiday, the details are as follows:

-May 3rd : Constitution day; to remind and celebrate the enactment of the current constitution of Japan, oriented to a fair and peaceful society.

-May 4th : Greenery day; "Midori no Hi" is described in my previous post, Showa Day, please check it out. 

-May 5th : Children's day; to celebrate or wish children's growth and to thank for their mothers.  This day used to be a boy's festival, just like a girl's festival on March 3rd.

-May 6th : a substituted holiday for May 3rd; this year May 3rd is Sunday.  Whenver a national holiday meets Sunday, the following weekday will be substituted as a national holiday.

This substituted holiday is one of the activities to achieve so called "work-life balance" for hard working Japanese people, who hesitate to take paid vacations.

The reasons are a little complicated and someday I will discuss this topic on my post if I find a good article to be introduced about the characteristics of Japanese people on working style.

Showa Day

April 29 th is a national holiday, called "Showa Day".

"Showa" is the name of the era during the reign of Emperor Hirohito, and it implicates "wishing the peace of both the people and the world".

Here, let me explain the background of this day.

Japan keeps the tradition enacting the name of an era for the Emperor or the Shogun since the early beginning of the foundation of Japan.

Before Showa Day has been enacted, April 29th had been the Emperor's Birthday since 1926 and a national holiday.  Showa was terminated in 1989 with his demise and the name of an era changed to "Heisei", the current era, meaning "peace everywhere", and the name of the day was also changed into "Midori no Hi", meaning the day of green called "Greenery day", referring to the season in which trees and flowers are blooming vividly.

Since 2007, "Midori no Hi" has moved to May 4th, and April 29th remained as a national holiday so as for the people to remember the hard times after World War 2 and the process of overcoming the hardship.

An Ancient Post Town in Japan

My wife and I visited a village that preserved ancient Japanese landscapes, named Tsumago, about 200km west from Tokyo.
Tsumago used to be a post town on the mountain side route from Tokyo to Kyoto, called Nakasendo, one of the main interstate in Edo period.(1602-1868).

Even a post office preserves its old style in housing but the workers are wearing in the current fashion.

The left bottom is the picture of a post office in Edo era.

We left Tsumago and moved to Suwa Grande Shrine, established over 1,200 years ago, and stayed at the hotel located in the Shrine territory.
We found two sets of Samurai armors  (O-Yoroi) about 1,000 years ago.

We celebrate May 5th, "Children's Day", decorating a samurai armors and pray for the growth of children, especially boys who will succeed  their clans and will bring prosperities to thrie families.

 "Samurai" as an occupation is diversified into many positions, in a sense, multi-functional workers.

They are not only soldiers but also administrative officers and law reinforcement at the same time.

A samurai in a lower class sometimes cultivates a field to afford their own food.

The five days transition of blooming

Here below is the transition of cherry blossoms and please find how fast it has changed.
The left picture was shot on Saturday, the center on Monday and the right one on Wednesday.

You can see how quick cherry blossoms bloom in a few days.

The weather was different everyday, so they look different, but I was so surprised at the dynamics of cherry blossoms.

We can see the difference between the left tree and the right.
The right is almost ending the peak of blooming, and the left is just in the mid of blooming.

Some people may say the right which is peak and it is no longer fun to watch.
However, a week ago, the left was slow to bloom and someone might say "it is not fun, because of no flowers".  People say something about blooming, but no one says "cut them down if they won't bloom".  We may know they will bloom someday and it will bring us fun.