Japan is starting its Golden Week holiday season, a collection of holidays that fall near each other. This weekend millions of travelers are headed to train stations, airports and the country’s expressways so they can travel home to spend time with family, or relax in exotic locations that have been denied them during the COVID crisis.
The number of travelers is through the roof, at least compared with last year’s depressed numbers, thanks to the arrival of vaccines. Reservations for Shinkansen bullet train seats are up 284% compared with last year’s Golden Week holidays, and international flights much more, with a whopping 500% rise in travelers compared with this time in 2021. Hawaii is a prime destination for many travelers from Japan, who are going to enjoy their first vacations there in 2-3 years. If you live in an exotic place and wonder where all the Japanese tourists suddenly came from, now you know why!
In addition, Japan is slowly preparing for the return of international tourism. Recently Japan removed nearly all of the restrictions for inbound travelers, removing the old requirement of self-quarantining for visitors to Japan with three vaccine shots. So if you’ve been yearning to visit Japan but were unable to do so because of COVID, you can start making plans again!
While the country closing down for a whole week often affects J-List shipping, happily customers using DHL shipping won’t have any delays as shipping goes out normally during Golden Week. So make an order and use our $25 shipping support coupon off all orders of $150 or more!
The History of Golden Week in Japan
Golden Week started out as a semi-accidental clustering of holidays that usually fall near each other, which the Japanese government latched onto as a great way to stimulate the economy, since people are theoretically spending more money when doing leisure activities with family than while at work. The holidays are Showa Day on April 29, the birthday of the old Emperor; Constitution Day on May 3, commemorating Japan’s postwar constitution; Green Day on May 4, a day to celebrate nature; and Children’s Day on May 5.
The name Golden Week was coined in 1951 when an executive at the Daiei Movie Company noticed a spike in ticket sales around these holidays, so his company started a campaign to advertise the holiday week as a great time to go see a movie, in the same way that “golden time” (aka “prime time,” i.e. the time when most viewers are supposedly watching TV, if this is still a thing in the era of Netflix) is the best time to watch television. While the Golden Week name has become universal today, Japan’s public broadcasting network NHK stoically refuses to use it, preferring the term 連休 renkyuu (“period of consecutive holidays”) to avoid using a label created to advertise a private industry like movie theatres.
Anyway, hope you have a great Golden Week, wherever you are in the world!
We live in stressful times, but it’s great that ero products from Japan are here for us, allowing us to manage our stress and enjoy some relaxing internal fantasy life. J-List has a ton of new ero products on the site, with someone for every perversion. Enjoy our new lower shipping rates + $25 Shipping Support Coupon for all orders of $150 or more, too!
