Trains, airports and tourist spot get very crowded during Golden Week, and accomodation in tourist areas can get booked out well in advance.

The national holidays making up the Golden Week are:

• April 29 – Showa Day (Showa no hi):
  April 29 is the birthday of former Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989. Until 2006, Greenery Day (see May 4) used to be celebrated on this day.
• May 3 – Constitution Day (Kenpo kinenbi):
  On this day in 1947, the new post war constitution was put into effect.
• May 4 – Greenery Day (Midori no hi):
  Until 2006, Greenery Day used to be celebrated on April 29, the birthday of former Emperor Showa. The day is dedicated to the enviroment and nature, because the emperor loved plants and nature. Before being declared Greenery Day, May 4 used to be a national holiday due to a law, which declares a day, that falls between two national holidays, a national holiday.
• May 5 – Children’s Day (Kodomo no hi):
  The Boy’s Festival (Tango no Sekku) is celebrated on this day. Families pray for the health and future success of their sons by hanging up carp streamers and displaying samurai dolls, both symbolizing strength, power and success in life. The Girl’s Festival, by the way, is celebrated on March 3.

Cherry blossoms, also known as Sakura, bloom simultaneously in the spring for one week. Recognized as Japan’s unofficial national flower, Sakura have frequently been used to establish diplomatic ties between Japan and other countries. The flowers reach full bloom and flutter to the ground gracefully during their final stage. The Japanese believe that these blossoms symbolize human life, transience and nobility. The blossoms begin in the southernmost island of Japan, Okinawa, in January and reach Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka in late March with Peak Bloom Period is predicted for April 3 – April 9, 2009.

Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka are the most popular cities to witness this spectacular natural event and to ensure everyone gets a chance to view the delicate pink and white blossoms. Tokyo’s busy Ueno Park, with 1,500 cherry trees, can be one of the best places to view Sakura. Cherry blossoms in Kyoto and Osaka tend to bloom several days later. The Arashiyama Mountain, with the Togetsukyo Wood Bridge, and Kyoto’s Imperial Palace provide beautifully picturesque scenes. Four thousand Sakura trees around Osaka Castle are illuminated at night for one week at the end of March and beginning of April, while Osaka Expo Park with over 5,500 cherry trees is a great place to have a picnic while viewing the cherry blossoms.

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Ironically Ginza in many ways is not typical Tokyo, but the idealised version of all things Tokyo, all things Japan.

Several years ago, during the late 1980s in a period now referred to as The Bubble, the main streets through Ginza were the site of the most expensive real estate on the planet. The equivalent of millions of dollars would pass from one part to another – per square meter – just to be able to purchase a small slice of the action in this part of the city.

Today, prices are still sky high, and with the global economy far more shaky and less active than it once was, it may come as a shock to most that life in Ginza continues as it always has – seemingly untouched. But that – is merely on the surface.

Company layoffs and increased numbers of sales in the excusive outlets all over Ginza are perhaps the benchmark of a Japanese icon experiencing its toughest time in decades.

The shoppers still throng the sidewalks and the department stores oggling the goodies on sale, but fewer and fewer are returning home having secured a purchase meaning that the ‘surface’ is as it always has been, but a little deeper down things are not quite as smooth. In the early 21st century, the window shoppers really are that – window shoppers.

Still, that makes it better for those looking for bargains – keep your eyes (and if you understand Japanese) ears peeled and you will find that a walk around Ginza now is far more cost effective, far better for those out for a cheap deal – but still worth saving the pennies for.

Her later additions – shoes, eyeglasses and pens – to the collection that took on the Coach name in the early 1960s really fueled that expansion and today, in addition to the London and Paris run-of-the-mill brand markets, the former one-man-show is now doing well in Japan; a nation the US was in that actually at war with in the year the company was essentially founded.

Coach products are particularly popular in Japan with established women in their late twenties and thirties, perhaps as a result of the bags being designed with numerous pockets on the exterior of the main bag space – a norm Coach really introduced to the market – ideal for the modern woman about town.

Today the store is represented in a number of the nation’s finest department stores as well as in its own (all) Coach store in Ginza – on Harumi Dori near the Sony Showroom.

Be prepared to pay a little more than you would elsewhere for Coach bags, purses and other accessories, but do so in the knowledge that your purchases are of the highest quality and will last and last and last.

COACH - Harumi Dori

Interested dining? Impossibly expensive! Want to do a bit of shopping? Not a problem – if you have direct access to a bank vault!

These and a hundred more examples exist in regards to going out and enjoying yourself in Ginza, and whilst many top of the range locations exist in terms of eating, shopping and / or being entertained, Ginza, with a little effort, is just as affordable as any other area in Tokyo or Japan.

For eats, head off the main streets that cross at Wako and Mitsukoshi. Ginza is a grid system of streets meaning that no-one should be too lost at any point in time, and, with the see and be seen mentality that so pervades pushing prices up on those main streets, it is in the back street that some very affordable options can be discovered – especially at lunchtime when set menus go for as little as 500 yen per person. Indeed, the two places pictured – behind COACH on Harumi Dori are relatively unknown but far from the exorbitant prices found just a few metres away – the perfect pit-stop.

Shopping is another hugely popular pastime in Ginza and the big names on the main streets really do dominate in terms of guide books and the likes (as do the prices they charge) but again, head behind the main strip and have a wander around the smaller stores in the 4-chome area. Many are older, family run, and more about quality of service than inflated prices and many a good deal can be had. All you have to do is look.

Time and effort WILL pay off in Ginza – so get there, get off the main drag and enjoy.

Ginza's Back Alleys

Throw in a few hints about him being a former daimyo from the Ako Region in western Honshu though, and the clouds will start to clear as Asano will be remembered as the lord whose death in 1701 led to one of the most famous stories of loyalty and revenge in the Middle Ages.

On April 21st that year, in what is often referred to as the Ako Incident, Asano, to put it incredibly simple lost his temper, drew his weapon – a forbidden act when in the service of the Shogun at the Edo Castle that was later to become the Imperial Palace – and injured the main most seen as baiting him – a lord by the name of Kira.

Within hours Asano Naganori had taken his own life; ordered to do so by the ruling Shogun Tsunayoshi.

His final words – recorded in his death poem of:
“kaze sasofu,
hana yori mo naho
ware wa mata
haru no nagori o
ika ni toyasen”

can translate as

“More than the cherry blossoms,
inviting a wind to blow them away,
I am wondering what to do,
with the remaining springtime.”

Asano was later buried in the graveyard of Sengaku-ji Temple in Shinagawa – the site of his statue (pictured).

His retainers became masterless samurai and the rest as they say – is history - their avenging of the death of their leader achieved by killing Kira on December 15, 1702.

Asano's statue at Sengaku-ji

The area to the east of Shinagawa is Tokyo Bay – lots of water, quite deep in parts and in others, remnants of the past can be seen in the mudflats stretching out to the water’s edge in the few as of yet undeveloped areas of shore.

Once upon a long time ago, much of this area, far further inland than it is now was mudflats. Oftentimes used as a place in which to harvest shellfish, the flats over time saw themselves reclaimed, earth piled atop and buildings atop that.

Today, the vast majority of the land that linked the slopes of central Tokyo with the water’s edge has vanished beneath buildings, streets and rail lines.

The slopes remain, however, to the immediate west of the main north south Tokaido train line, and start almost as soon as the flat land on which the train lines and an adjacent road end.

Almost all have their own names associated or related to the residents once to be found in the area with one particularly interesting site actually (pictured) called Katsura-zaka. Zaka is the Japanese term for slope and Katsura, oddly, a word meaning ‘wig’.

Whether this was once an area of tradesmen specialising in wigs…….

Hebi-zaka is another slope not too far away and with hebi a Japanese word for snake, modern residents can only hope the slope never again attracts the beasts it was named after.

Katsura-zaka