June!

Exploit the locals’ holiday weakness.

If you are coming to Japan to visit, please do it in June.

After May 20 at the earliest.

This is because Japan has a big holiday weekend called Golden Week.

Golden Week begins on April 29 and most companies and schools are closed until May 5.

Some large companies, however, may extend their holidays.

The Japanese are said to work too much. Many of them play like crazy during this period.

And they go and stay here and there.

Ryokan and hotels are fully booked, and theme parks are overflowing with people.

Some people go back to their parents’ homes or embark on overnight car trips.

It is no fun to come to Japan at this time of year.

You would not come to see the crowds. The shorter the wait for attractions at theme parks, the more desirable it will be. Hotels would be best if they are close to being rented out.

Then you should stay away from Japan during this period. When Golden Week is over and many Japanese are working in a depressed mood, you should have the best time.

Golden Week

The term “Golden Week” was coined in 1951 by Hideo Matsuyama, then senior managing director of Daiei, in an effort to encourage more people to see movies during the period when “Jiyu Gakko (Free School),” a movie shown during what is now Golden Week, was a bigger hit than the New Year and Obon box office.
The name “Golden Week” was derived from “Golden Time,” the time slot with the highest listening rate on the radio.

Other theories on the origin of the term include the theory that it was given to the period from the end of April to early May, when the melting snow in the Rocky Mountains yielded so much gold sand that people streamed to the area to search for gold, resulting in a state of holiday.
There is also a theory that the name “Golden Week” came from the fact that Marco Polo, who introduced Japan as “Zipangu, the Land of Gold” in his book “The Travels of Marco Polo in the East,” came to Japan in early May, but these are all popular theories.

Following Golden Week, a week of vacations and events centering on Culture Day on November 3 was named “Silver Week,” but the term never took root and faded away. (Since 2009, the term has been used for a major holiday weekend in September, but there is no direct relationship between the two.)