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OPENING HOURS, NATIONAL HOLIDAYS AND
FESTIVALS |
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Business hours are generally Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, though
private companies often close much later in the evening and may also
open on Saturday mornings. Department stores and bigger shops tend to
open around 10am and shut at 7pm or 8pm, with no break for lunch. Local
shops, however, will generally stay open later, while many convenience
stores are open 24 hours. Most shops will take one day off a week, not
necessarily on a Sunday.
Banks open on weekdays from 9am to 3pm, and close on Saturdays, Sundays
and national holidays. Post offices tend to work 9am to 5pm on weekdays,
closing at weekends and also on national holidays, though a few open on
Saturdays from 9am to 3pm. Central post offices, on the other hand, stay
open till 7pm in the evening, open on Saturdays from 9am to 5pm and on
Sundays and holidays from 9am to 12.30pm. Larger offices are also likely
to operate an after-hours service for parcels and express mail,
sometimes up to 24 hours at major post offices.
The majority of museums close on a Monday, but stay open on Sundays and
national holidays; last entry is normally thirty minutes before closing.
There's almost invariably an admission charge to museums and other
tourist sights. In the Guide we give the cost of an adult entry ticket;
school-age children and students usually get reduced rates, which may be
up to half the adult price.
While most museums and department stores stay open on national holidays
, they usually take the following day off instead. However, during the
New Year festival (January 1-4), Golden Week (April 29-May 5) and Obon (the
week around August 15), almost everything shuts down. Around these
periods every form of transport and accommodation will be booked out
weeks in advance, and all major tourist spots will be besieged.
Festivals
Festivals ( matsuri ) still play a central role in many Japanese
communities. Most are Shinto in origin and mark important occasions in
the agricultural cycle, re-enact historic events or honour elements of
the local economy, such as sewing needles or silkworms. Since every
shrine and temple observes its own festivals, in addition to national
celebrations the chances are you'll stumble across a matsuri at some
stage during your visit. However, if you get the chance, it's worth
trying to take in one of the major festivals, some of which are
described below.
Matsuri (meaning both "festival" and "worship") can take many forms,
from stately processions in period costume to sacred dances, fire
rituals, archery contests, phallus worship or poetry-writing
competitions. The best are riotous occasions where mikoshi (portable
shrines) are shouldered by a seething, chanting crowd, usually fortified
with quantities of sake and driven on by resonating drums. Don't stand
back - anyone prepared to enter into the spirit of things will be
welcome. However, if you are heading for any of the famous festivals,
make sure you've got your transport and accommodation sorted out well in
advance.
Though not such a lively affair, by far the most important event in the
Japanese festive calendar is the New Year festival of renewal, Oshogatsu
. It's mainly a time for family reunions, and most of the country - bar
public transport - closes down for at least the first three days of the
year, with many people taking the whole week off work (roughly December
27 to January 4). Whilst Japanese traditionally celebrated the lunar New
Year, since the Meiji government adopted the Western calendar in 1873,
the festivities have been moved to January 1. According to the Japanese
system of numbering years, starting afresh with each change of emperor,
2001 is the thirteenth year of Heisei - Heisei being the official name
of Emperor Akihito's reign.
In recent years, several non-Japanese festivals have been catching on,
with a few adaptations for local tastes. Only women give men gifts on
Valentine's Day (February 14), usually chocolates, while on White Day (March
14) men get their turn to give their loved ones more chocolates (white,
of course), perfume or racy underwear. Another import is Christmas ,
celebrated in Japan as an almost totally commercial event, with carols,
plastic holly and tinsel in profusion and, for some reason, endless
recitals of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Christmas Eve , rather than New
Year, is the time to party and a big occasion for romance - you'll be
hard-pressed to find a table at any restaurant or a room in the top
hotels.
Japan's major festivals and national holidays
JANUARY
Ganjitsu (or Gantan ): January 1. On the first day of the year everyone
heads for the shrines to pray for good fortune (national holiday).
Yamayaki : January 15. The slopes of Wakakasu-yama, Nara, are set alight
during a grass-burning ceremony.
Seijin-no-hi (Adults' Day): second Monday in January. Twenty-year-olds
celebrate their entry into adulthood by visiting their local shrine.
Many women dress in sumptuous kimono (national holiday).
FEBRUARY
Setsubun : February 3 or 4. On the last day of winter (by the lunar
calendar), people scatter lucky beans round their homes and at shrines
or temples to drive out evil and welcome in the year's good luck.
Yuki Matsuri : February 5-11. Sapporo's famous snow festival features
giant snow sculptures.
National Foundation Day : February 11 (national holiday).
MARCH
Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival): March 3. Families with young girls display
sets of fifteen dolls ( hina ningyo ) representing the Emperor, Empress
and their courtiers dressed in ancient costume. Department stores,
hotels and museums put on special exhibitions of antique dolls.
Spring Equinox : March 20 or 21 (national holiday).
Cherry-Blossom festivals : late March to early May. With the arrival of
spring in late March, a pink tide of cherry blossom washes north from
Kyushu, travels up Honshu during the month of April and peters out in
Hokkaido in early May. There are cherry-blossom festivals, and the sake
flows at blossom-viewing parties. Though every area has its own favoured
cherry-blossom spots, the most celebrated are the mountains around
Yoshino (near Kyoto), Tokyo's Ueno Koen and Hirosaki on the tip of
northern Honshu.
APRIL
Hana Matsuri : April 8. Buddha's birthday is celebrated at all temples
with parades, and a small statue of Buddha is sprinkled with sweet tea.
Takayama Matsuri : April 14-15. Parade of ornate festival floats ( yatai
), some with acrobatic marionettes.
Greenery Day : April 29 (national holiday).
MAY
Constitution Memorial Day : May 3 (national holiday).
Kokumin no Shukujitsu : May 4 (national holiday).
Kodomo-no-hi (Children's Day): May 5. The original Boys' Day now
includes all children as families fly carp banners, symbolizing strength
and perseverance, outside their homes (national holiday).
Aoi Matsuri (Hollyhock Festival): May 15. Costume parade through the
streets of Kyoto, with ceremonies to ward off storms and earthquakes.
Tosho-gu Grand Matsuri : May 17. Nikko's most important festival,
featuring a parade of over 1000 costumed participants and horseback
archery to commemorate the burial of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1617.
Smaller-scale repeat performance on October 17.
Sanja Matsuri : Around May 18. Tokyo's biggest festival takes place in
Asakusa. Over 100 mikoshi are jostled through the streets, accompanied
by lion dancers, geisha and musicians.
JULY
Hakata Yamagasa : July 1-15. Fukuoka's main festival culminates in a
five-kilometre race carrying or pulling heavy mikoshi , while spectators
douse them with water.
Tanabata Matsuri (Star Festival): July 7. According to legend, the only
day in the year when the astral lovers, Vega and Altair, can meet across
the Milky Way. Poems and prayers are hung on bamboo poles outside
houses.
Gion Matsuri : July 17. Kyoto's month-long festival focuses around a
parade of huge floats hung with rich silks and paper lanterns.
Marine Day : July 20 (national holiday).
Hanabi Taikai : last Saturday in July. The most spectacular of the many
summer firework displays takes place in Tokyo, on the Sumida River near
Asakusa.
AUGUST
Nebuta and Neputa Matsuri : August 1-7. Aomori and Hirosaki hold
competing summer festivals, with parades of illuminated paper-covered
figures, like huge lanterns.
Tanabata Matsuri : August 6-8. Sendai holds its famous Star Festival a
month after everyone else, so the lovers get another chance.
Obon (Festival of Souls): August 13-15, or July 13-15 in some areas.
Families gather around the ancestral graves to welcome back the spirits
of the dead and honour them with special Bon-odori dances on the final
night.
Awa Odori : August 12-15. The most famous Bon odori takes place in
Tokushima, when up to 80,000 dancers take to the streets.
SEPTEMBER
Respect-for-the-Aged Day : September 15 (national holiday).
Autumn Equinox : September 23 or 24 (national holiday).
OCTOBER
Okunchi Matsuri : October 7-9. Shinto rites mingle with Chinese- and
European-inspired festivities to create Nagasaki's premier celebration,
incorporating dragon dances and floats in the shape of Chinese and Dutch
ships.
Sports Day : second Monday in October (national holiday).
Kawagoe's Grand Matsuri . October 14 and 15. One of the most lively
festivals in the Tokyo area, involving some 25 ornate floats and
hundreds of costumed revellers.
Jidai Matsuri : October 22. Kyoto's famous, if rather sedate, costume
parade vies with the more exciting Kurama Matsuri , a night-time fire
festival which takes place in a village near Kyoto.
NOVEMBER
Culture Day : November 3 (national holiday).
Shichi-go-san (Seven-five-three): November 15. Children of the
appropriate ages don mini-kimono and hakama (loose trousers) to visit
their local shrine.
Labour Thanksgiving Day : November 23 (national holiday).
DECEMBER
Emperor's Birthday : December 23 (national holiday).
Omisoka : December 31. Just before midnight on the last day of the year,
temple bells ring out 108 times to cast out each of man's earthly
desires and start the year afresh.
Note : if any of the above national holidays fall on a Sunday, then the
following Monday is also a holiday.
Oshogatsu
In the days leading up to New Year, generally known as Oshogatsu , Japan
succumbs to a frenzy of cleaning as last year's bad luck is swept away.
People decorate their rooms, doorways and even car radiators with bamboo
and pine sprigs, and visit temple fairs to buy lucky charms such as
rakes, arrows and daruma dolls - the chubby little red fellow with
staring white eyes; the idea is to make a wish while drawing in one eye
and complete the other when it comes true. Shops also do well, as
everyone gets a new haircut or a new kimono, buys bundles of the
obligatory New Year cards and generally lays in food to tide them over
the coming festivities. Fortunately, traditional year-end bonuses help
cover the costs, but often less welcome are the interminable rounds of
aptly named "forget the year" parties ( bonen-kai ) when groups of
colleagues, club members and friends consume enough alcohol to wipe out
any bad memories or ill luck from the previous year.
By the time New Year's Eve arrives, everyone's exhausted. So nowadays,
at 9pm, the whole nation flops down to watch a three-hour TV
extravaganza of the best - and less memorable - pop groups from the
previous year. Those with only mild hangovers might slurp a bowl of
toshi-koshi soba , extra-long noodles symbolizing longevity, which
traditionally form the last meal of the year, and then hurry off to the
nearest shrine or temple to join the crowds waiting to make their first
offerings of the New Year. Temple bells ring out 108 times to cast out
the 108 human frailties; the last chime heralds the New Year and a clean
slate.
The first shrine visit ( hatsu-mode ), the first meal, the first drive -
each activity in the new year must be performed properly and safely to
ensure good luck. On the first day, families share a celebratory meal ,
prepared earlier since no-one's supposed to work for the first three
days, consisting of symbolic foods. It starts with a toast of sweet sake
mixed with medicinal herbs, designed to confer long-life, followed by a
feast including herring roe (prosperity and fertility), black beans
(good health), chestnuts (success) and mochi . These sticky-rice cakes
are usually served with vegetables in a special soup ( ozoni ); they may
not look - or taste - much, but mochi are said to ensure strength,
stamina and, again, longevity.
The traditional New Year's greeting is akemashite ome gozaimasu , and
it's customary for adults to give the children of friends and family
envelopes containing several thousand yen in crisp notes.
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