欽ちゃん＆香取慎吾の仮装大賞

今日は子供の日 (Today is Children’s Day).
Families with sons with often decorate their homes with 鯉のぼり (Carp streamers) and Samurai dolls and eat a special meal on this holiday.

Today on 日テレ (Nihon TV) is a semi-annual TV show that I enjoy watching alot.

The show is 「欽ちゃん＆香取慎吾の全日本仮装大賞」 (Kinchan & Shingo Katori’s All-Japan Costume Talent Contest).

(click image to go to the show's website)

The last time this showed aired was on 8 January 2009. I wrote a post about it in January, and included a couple YouTube videos of skits from the show. Click here to see that post.

Tonight 「欽ちゃん＆香取慎吾の全日本仮装大賞」 (Kinchan & Shingo Katori’s All-Japan Costume Talent Contest) will be on 日テレ (Nihon TV) from 19:58 – 21:54 (7:58 – 9:54 PM)*.

(* In Japan, television shows are often scheduled to begin and end a couple minutes before the hour (such as 7:58PM). That often seems odd to foreign visitors to Japan).

On this show, a panel of five judges watch people’s skits done with homemade costumes and props and the judges can award the contestants up to four points each (for a total of twenty possible points).
If the contestant earns at least twelve points, they have a chance to win one of the cash prizes.

Here’s another video of a skit from the show (besides the ones I already have on my earlier post here). It’s titled 「スーパーマリオ」 (“Super Mario“). At the end you can see they get the full twenty points…and they’re very excited!

If you’re in Japan, you should watch this TV show tonight. It’s great!

入場無料

今日は緑の日 (Today is Greenery Day).

Many 動物園 (zoos) and 水族館 (aquariums) in Japan were open to the public today with 入場無料 (free admission). This happens three days year…you can go in these places for free on 緑の日 (Greenery Day), the anniversary of day that the zoo / aquarium first opened, and Citizen’s Day.
For example, 上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) in Tokyo has free admission on March 20 (開園記念日 (the anniversary of the day that the zoo first opened)), May 4 (緑の日 (Greenery Day)), and October 1 (都民の日 (Tokyo Citizen’s Day))…(Click here to see my 1 October 2009 post about the zoo.)

(BTW, 上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) always offers free admission to children who are junior-high-school aged or younger (and who go to a school in Tokyo), and also to the disabled and one assistant.)

We decided to go to 上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) today.
As it always is when the admission is free…it was very crowded there today!

I took a number of photos…but due to the crowds, it was difficult to get good photos. So many of my photos (including my photo of the gorillas, flamingos, and the new baby rhino didn’t turn out well).

But here are some of my photos:

鯉のぼり (Carp Streamers); a Japanese 「子供の日」 ("Children's Day") (May 5) decoration.

ありくい (Aardvark)

ハリネズミ (Porcupine)

Golden Week

Right now, it’s “Golden Week” in Japan.

黄金週間　(usually referred to by the English name “Golden Week” or simply “G.W.”) is May 3 (健保記念日 (“Constitution Day”)), May 4 (緑の日 (“Greenery Day”)), and May 5 (こどもの日 (“Children’s Day”))…but just before these holidays is 昭和の日 (“Showa Day”) on April 29, so some companies give their employees the week of April 29 until May 5 off for Golden Week.

By the way, until 2006, Greenery Day was on April 29 and May 4th was called 国民の記念日 (Residents’ Day).

(If you want to read a bit more about Japan’s holidays, click here to see my summary of Japanese holidays on my FAQ page.)

This year May 4 is on a Sunday so Greenery Day is observed on Tuesday, May 6. So this year’s Golden Week is from Saturday, May 3 til Tuesday, May 6…a four day weekend.

So today’s the last day of Golden Week…tomorrow we go back to work (or school, in the kids’ case), so we’re just relaxing at home today.

Yesterday, though, we went to 原宿 (Harajuku). We knew it’d be especially crowded during the holidays…but Harajuku is where all the teenagers hang out and shop, and many stores were having sales for Golden Week so my kids wanted to go there.

Here’s a couple pictures of the famous 竹下通り (Takeshita Street)…it’s always crowded there, but it was unreal yesterday:

From there, we walked to 表参道通り (Omotesando-doori), which is like the Rodeo Drive of Japan with all the luxury brand stores. We went to the giant “Kiddy Land” toy store.

Then we got dinner and went home.