Golden Week

This is the week to stay away from Japan. It's called "Golden Week", It's almost two weeks long and three of their major holidays fall during this period.Very few Japanese people are working , everyone is outside playing baseball. Parks are lousy with six year olds pitching to their fathers. If Matsuzaka can do it...
The majority of Japanese people are not religious, so there are no real religious holidays that I am aware of. They are however, highly superstitious and every move they make has a superstition attatched to it. I recently went to a Temple where you had to breathe your problems into a piece of clay and then dash it on a rock to try to break it. Easier said than done; it's a good thing I had a hard time coming up with a problem.
One of this week's holdiays is "boys day", I think boys fly kites while their parents drink sake on that day. Another day is sumo- baby-cry day, you take your under one year old baby to a shrine where sumo wrestlers try to scare it, it's reaction tells the gods something who then try to protect it for the rest of it's life.