April 29th (Thursday): Showa Day (the birthdate of the emperor during WWII, and is meant to encourage people to reflect about all the things that happened at that time)
April 30th (Friday): Nothing, besides an awkward day when a lot of people cut class.
May 1-2 (Saturday and Sunday): Well...also nothing, but at least it's the weekend.
May 3 (Monday): Constitution Memorial Day (a day meant to reflect on democracy and the government)
May 4 (Tuesday): Greenery Day (a day to reflect on...nature?)
May 5 (Wednesday): Children's Day, also known as Boys' Day (technically the girls got their own day with the Doll Festival in March, but only the boys' day was special enough to get people off of work, evidently. Maybe that's why they renamed it to "Children's Day," and also said it was a day to appreciate mothers, even though Mothers' Day is only 4 days later...This holiday is notable for the flying of carp-shaped flags representing different members of the family.)
Children's Day carp flags
Since this is one of the longest breaks that most Japanese company workers get, it is an extremely busy time for travel, especially for people going back to visit their hometowns. Originally I was going to go to Miyajima, an island near Hiroshima, but that ended up not working out, so I think I'm going to see a few new locations around the Kansai Area so I don't have to travel so far. And yes, I think I will come to campus on Friday--I don't think I could last for 7 days without internet, and anyway I don't want to miss time in ceramics, since I need to finish things up so that everything will be finished in time.
Things are starting to wrap up with Kansai Gaidai's program. Finals end in 3 weeks, meaning that I only have about a week and a half of real classes left because of Golden Week. I am really glad that I am here, although I will definitely be ready to go home once I am done!
Lately there have been a lot of suspicious-looking men in dark suits with big cameras roaming the CIE building and shooting pictures of students lounging and studying. Today in Japanese, a group of 3 of them wanted to come in and take pictures, and Shikaura-sensei explained that they were pictures to advertise Kansai Gaidai's program to future generations (or as she said, they were propaganda). Funny Shikaura-sensei, she posed in front of students and told them to point at their books and look like she was helping them to learn while the shutters clicked away. I hope the pictures show up in a brochure for some future generation.
I guess that's it for now!
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