We were delighted to have 57 guests from UK, Malaysia, USA, Canada, Hungary, Chili, Italy, Singapore, Czech, Germany, Australia, Norway, France, New Zealand, Portugal & Japan (with her cousin from Singapore). It is always a impressive learning that we have guests from such a lots of countries.
It was cloudy and a bit windy but was not too cold. We observed that leaves had just started turning red and yellow. If you are interested in fully colored leaves in Kyoto or Kamakura, let us recommend you to travel to Japan late in November.
By the way, is there anyone who visited Japan recently? Did you notice that Japanese society enjoyed “Halloween” as seasonal event? The famous Shibuya Crossing was packed with young people in costumes. In order to avoid traffic confusion, the streets in the area was partially vehicle-free controlled by the Metropolitan Police Department. Huge number of Halloween related events were held nationwide. Kids in line walked in the local shopping street and enjoyed “trick or treat”. Even Japanese traditional sweets shop put Halloween decoration and banks also supported events offering sweets to kids. There is an increasing amount of Halloween special merchandising, such as cakes, cookies, ice creams, flower arrangements and more.
As you can easily imagine, Halloween is not a traditional Japanese event. According to source, the two things that have really made Halloween in Japan are Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan. Tokyo Disneyland held its first Halloween event in 2000, followed by USJ. Disneyland and USJ provided an easy way for Japanese people to enjoy Halloween and laid the groundwork for the Halloween to expand to other businesses hoping to cash in.
For us Japanese, this kind of “valuing diversity and practicing inclusion” is natural and ordinary things. We celebrate traditional events based on Shinto and Buddhism and also enjoys Christmas and Halloween as seasonal events.
One of my tour-guide colleague enjoyed original nail decoration on the day!
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Reported by Akemi