Disneyland for half-price

From 2011 July 8 until August 31, 「東京ディズニーリゾート」 (Tokyo Disney Resort), which is the collective name for Tokyo Disneyland and it’s neighboring Tokyo Disney Sea together, will offer their one-day passport tickets for children between the ages of four to eleven for half-price (children under four are always admitted for free).

This is the first time Tokyo Disney has cut their prices like this. The reason they’re offering this special bargain is to help raise the spirits of children in Japan since the devastating earthquake last March.

Tokyo Disney Resort‘s “one-day passport” is valid for one park or the other (not both) for one entire day.

The price for the “one-day passport” is normally ¥6,200 (about US$76.68) for ages 18-59, ¥5,500 (about US$68.02) for ages 60 and over, ¥5,300 (about US$65.55) for ages 12-17, and ¥4,100 (about US$50.70) for kids aged 4-11.

But from July 8 – August 31, the kids “one-day passport” will be reduced to ¥2,050 (about US$25.35).

This doesn’t affect me since my kids are all too old for the reduced ticket price…but if you have young kids and you’ll be in the Tokyo area in July or August of this year, you should consider taking advantage of this half-price ticket.

日本の夏

It’s now summertime.

Currently it’s 「梅雨」 (“Rainy season“) in Japan. As usual for this time of year, it’s forecast to rain a lot for the next few days.
But also, the temperature is rising steadily and it’s quite humid. Today it was a muggy 31°C (88°F) in Tokyo.

Summer is hot and humid here…but it’s still very enjoyable. There’s so much to do.
Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer are all very different in Japan. Of course the weather is different…but I mean the food, festivals, and general atmosphere is different and unique to each season.

In a couple of earlier posts I mentioned that fast-food chains in Japan have spicy items on their menus  (Click here to read one of those posts)…but fast-food isn’t a traditional Japanese summer tradition of course, and actually their spicy summer foods aren’t extremely popular in Japan (I haven’t even tried any of them).

There are traditional foods that are very popular in Japan during the summer to help you deal with the summer heat.
Some of them are:

– 冷やし中華 (“Hiyashi Chuuka“). Cold noodles, cucumbers, ham, tomatoes, and cold soy sauce.

– スイカ (watermelon)

– かき氷 (shaved ice)

– ビール (beer)…Popular all year long, of course. But excellent to help you cool down in the summer.

– うな丼 (Freshwater eel on rice). This is said to help keep up your stamina in hot weather.

うな丼 (Freshwater eel on rice). I enjoy this dish a lot!

Some other aspects of summer in Japan include:

– the beaches and pools become crowded. Especially in August.

– the numerous summer festivals including 花火 (summer fireworks shows).

– insects. The “sound of summer” in Japan is the chirping of the セミ (cicadas). There are also カブト虫 (beetles)…and, unfortunately, ゴキブリ (cockroaches) and 蚊 (mosquitoes).

– 蚊取線香 (mosquito repellent incense).

蚊取線香 (mosquito repellent incense) often is shaped like a pig

To stay cool, there’s also ウチワ and 扇子 (types of paper fans), and ジンベイ and ユカタ (traditional Japanese summer clothing).

This isn’t an all-exclusive description of a summer in Japan, of course. It’s difficult to describe…you should come to Japan in each of the seasons and see “four different Japans”.

What’s summer like in your country?

花火

梅雨 (The rainy season) will be over soon in the Tokyo area and then the rest of summer will be filled with hot, humid, sunny days.

In Japan, 夏 (summer) means スイカ (watermelon), 祭 (festivals), 海 (the beach), 小鳥線香 (mosquito repellent coil)…

and 花火 (fireworks)!

宮島水中花火大会 in Hiroshima.

In the evenings of July and August (usually on the weekends), there are summer 花火大会 (fireworks shows) all over Japan.

If you go to a fireworks show in Japan,
– you should bring a picnic style food and drinks for yourself and your group…there’s no BBQ grilling done at fireworks shows in Japan,
– bring a plastic tarp sheet for your group to sit on…but, although many people do it, you’re not supposed to use the sheet to reserve a spot for yourself ahead of time,
– if you want to use 線香花火 (sparklers), don’t wave them around…it’s considered dangerous in Japan,
– you can wear 「ゆかた」 (summer kimono) or 「じんべい」 (Japanese traditional summer shorts / shirt outfit) if you want to,
– and Japanese people call out 「たまや！かぎや！」 (“Tamaya! Kagiya!“*) when the fireworks go up…you can yell that out too, if you want. (* Long ago, Tamaya and Kagiya were competing fireworks companies in Japan. Fireworks spectators began to call out their names to egg on their competition to make bigger and bigger displays. Today it remains popular to shout it out at fireworks shows.)

There are too many fireworks shows around Japan to list them all, even just in the Tokyo area there are too many to list.
But here’s a list of the main ones in the Tokyo area and the date of the summer 2009 shows (also you can click here to see a list of some of Tokyo’s Fireworks shows on my “Festivals in Tokyo“):

• 宮島水中花火大会 (Miyajima Suichu Fireworks Show) in 広島 (Hiroshima) – Friday, August 14
  (It’s far from Tokyo…but this show gets special mention. The photo in this post above is of this fireworks show. (The rest of the shows on this list are in Tokyo.)).
• 調布市花火大会 (Choufu-shi Fireworks Show) – Saturday, July 18
• 葛飾納涼花火大会 (Katsushika Nouryou Fireworks Show) – Tuesday, July 21
• 足立の花火大会 (Adachi Fireworks Show) – Thursday, July 23
• 隅田川花火大会 (Sumida River Fireworks Show) – Saturday, July 25
• 飯田橋花火大会 (Iidabashi Fireworks Show) – Saturday, August 1
• 江戸川花火大会 (Edo River Fireworks Show) – Saturday, August 1
• 青梅市納涼花火大会 (Oumeshi Nouryou Fireworks Show) – Saturday, August 1
• 昭島市民くじら祭夢花火 (Akishima-Residents Whale-Festival Dream-Fireworks Show) – Saturday, August 1 – Sunday, August 2
• 江東花火大会 (Koutou Fireworks Show) – Tuesday, August 4
• 日刊スポーツ主催2009神宮外苑花火大会第30回記念大会 (30th Nikkan Sports Shusai Shrine Outer-Garden Fireworks Festival 2009) – Thursday, August 6
• 東京湾大花火祭 (Tokyo Bay Grand Fireworks Festival) – Saturday, August 8
• 八丈島納涼花火大会 (Hachijyoujima Nouryou Fireworks Show) – Tuesday, August 11
• 第五回せいせき多摩川花火大会 (5th Performance Tama River Fireworks Show) – Tuesday, August 11
• 世田川区たまがわ花火大会 (Setagawa-Ward Tama River Fireworks Show) – Saturday, August 22

If you want any more information about these or other 花火大会 (Fireworks shows) in Japan (such as how to get there, the times of the shows, etc), please feel free to post a comment (click here), or contact me with this E-mail form, and I’ll help you as much as I can:

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