Golden Week

So, as of this week I have no more breaks until the very end of July. Which means I really have to concentrate on school. Even though all of my friends back home are finishing finals for the semester. One of them very helpfully pointed out that I just got off a two month break, and therefore have no reason to complain. Can't I have the best of both worlds?

Anyway! We just finished something called "Golden Week" which is just a week-long time span in the beginning of May with a bunch of holidays set up back to back. Mostly, employers give their workers the entire week off. My school wasn't quite that nice. Instead, we got two long weekends in a row! Oh-boy!

It's also getting really warm here in Japan now. I'll have to put away the slacks and jeans soon. In the next few months Japan will become almost unbearably hot and muggy. But, it will also come with a bunch of rain showers. And I love rain, so I'm looking forward to it. We actually had our first thunder storm of the year a few days ago. Rain was blowing in sideways through my window!

But, the combination of the long weekends and the nice weather meant only one thing for us gaijin: the beach! Seriously, if there is one thing I miss more than anything else in the whole wide world its spending all my time soaking up the sunshine. Not that I do that a whole lot in Colorado anyway (it snows like... nine months out of the year). But, when Dad was stationed in Hawaii I loved laying outside in the back yard with a book and my iPod- you know, the benefits of living next to the ocean.

There was some talk about maybe going to Okinawa before school started back up, but it never actually happened. And then, one of my friends told us Odaiba was only about an hour away. Odaiba is an island in the middle of Tokyo Harbor, and it has a beach. A beach named Tokyo Decks Beach.... umm, why wasn't I told about this earlier?! Okay... it might actually be because it hasn't been warm enough until now to actually go sunbathing.

It was really different going to a beach in practically the middle of the city. The view looking out across the water was of the Tokyo skyline, and it sorta left me a little confused. I guess I'm used to the oceans where all I see is more water. The beach is a really popular place now that the weather is good. The first weekend we went to the beach, there was a hula competition. We got to see a couple of the teams practicing on the beach. The next weekend we ended up going on Children's Day, and there were a lot of events set up for kids at the beach. 

I'll admit. The first weekend we went to the beach, we splurged a bit and went to dinner. I think it had more to do with the fact that none of us really wanted to leave Odaiba. I know I made the statement several times that I wanted to live on the beach. I'll just have to make due with visiting on the weekends as much as possible. 

 

Besides going to the beach, us foreigners (at the apartment) began the new tradition of brunch on Sundays. I decided french toast would be a pretty easy thing to make. But, apparently its not a common breakfast food in the UK and France? I found this out when my two friends from those countries inhaled the one loaf of french toast I made. So, the next weekend I ended up making three loaves of french bread into french toast. They ate it all. I am actually really flattered they liked my cooking so much! 

This weekend we aren't going to the beach (that'll be the following weekend!... maybe) But, we are going down to Yokosuka. I'll let you know how the shopping trip goes!