Golden Week

This past weekend was Golden Week. It’s a long holiday – not actually a week – rather a four day weekend, but I’ll take it nonetheless. Everyone travels during Golden Week. I went to Yokohama and Kamakura with some friends.

Tip: Don’t travel during Golden Week.

Yokohama was cool. Much like any other Japanese city. It’s famous for its Chinatown. The Yokohama Chinatown is more like a tourist attraction than a residence for Chinese people. The Yokohama Chinatown didn’t seem to be a residence for Chinese people. Rather, it is a place that Japanese people go to get a taste of China within their own country. The place was packed with Japanese tourists. So many filled the streets that it was hard to move. The shop owners were Chinese, but I didn’t get the sense that Chinatown was a community that the Chinese people actually lived in. It was more like a theme park with gift shops and Chinese restaurants.

We stayed a few blocks from Chinatown, in a hostel. The part of town we stayed in was one of the strangest places I’ve ever been. The streets were run down (which is really strange for Japan) and there were barely any young people (strange for a city). In fact, almost all the residents of this part of town were old, crusty looking men. Most of them walked with a limp. And they were all over the neighborhood. Around every corner, there was another group of hobblers. It was like a zombie movie. “Day of the Living Dead,” I’d call it (they all went to bed early, but were up shuffling around aimlessly shortly after sunrise). It was really, really weird.

Also really weird was this sea-world type attraction outside the city. It was celebrating its 15th anniversary, but it looked really run down (eerily atypical of Japan). Also, the people there looked seedier and fatter than the Japanese people I’m used to seeing. And the employees in the (American style) food court weren’t very polite. It was almost like being back in the States…

Kamakura was cool. There’s a daibutsu (really big Buddha statue) there. But, it was super crowded. The trains were packed. Absolutely stuffed. And just when you thought they couldn’t get more crowded, additional people somehow squeezed themselves on. It was so bad that the omiyage I bought for the tearoom at school got a little crushed.