The cherry blossoms are over and the season is dazzling with fresh greenery.
The long-awaited Golden Week is just around the corner. Golden Week is Japanese English, so it should be difficult for people from overseas to understand. It refers to the period from the end of April to the beginning of May every year, when there are many holidays.
To be more specific, holidays and public holidays are concentrated in the period from 29 April to 5 May, and this period (including weekdays and Saturdays) has come to be known as Golden Week. During this period, 29 April (Showa Day), 3 May (Constitution Day), 4 May (Greenery Day) and 5 May (Children’s Day) are national holidays. The number of holidays varies from year to year and the reason for this is related to the Law on National Holidays.
This is because when a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following weekday is designated as a substitute holiday, and a single weekday sandwiched between public holidays is designated as a ‘national holiday’.
In 2022, all public holidays related to Golden Week fall on weekdays, so there are no substitution holidays. For those who have Saturdays and Sundays off, there will be two consecutive three-day holidays from 29 April (Friday, Showa Day) to 1 May (Sunday) and from 3 May (Tuesday, Constitution Day) to 5 May (Thursday, Children’s Day) in 2022.
You can take longer holidays by making good use of your paid leave. The long-awaited Golden Week is just around the corner.
Normally, many people travel abroad during this holiday period and domestic holiday destinations are overflowing with people, but it looks like we will have another quiet Golden Week again this year due to COVID-19.
Well, I have a son who is preparing to take his high school entrance exams early next year, so he should be able to concentrate on his studies.