Heading home for the holidays is always a treat.
This September, the 5-day holiday Silver Week was back on the calendar and gave us an extra long weekend.
Silver Week first became an "official term" in 2009, when the stars first perfectly aligned. It's a combination of the weekend, Respect for the Aged Day and Autumn Equinox Day. As one holiday is always on a Monday, due to the Happy Monday System, and the other an astronomically determined holiday, depending on the year, it becomes a consecutive holiday. And with the help of a law that automatically makes the day sandwiched between public holidays a holiday of its own, it becomes a 5-day weekend.
God bless whoever made that law.
My baby sister was staying with me in September, which I loved. Living alone has its perks but having someone there to welcome you with an "Okaeri-nasai!" is pretty great, too. Not to mention, not having to do the dishes by yourself. Ha.
As Silver Week isn't due back on the calender until 2026, my sisters and I took full advantage of it this year to head back home to Ehime. We rarely fly home together, due to schedule conflicts, but this time I got to take extra time off work and my baby sister and I both got on the same flight to Matsuyama. Other than the usual family dinners and catching each other up on everything, I've noticed that there are certain things our family does every time we're back together at home.
- We bring out the old family albums and go through them for the millionth time. There are some photos that just crack everyone up each time. I wish I had a record of everything we remember and notice from these photos. Sometimes all six of us have different memories from the same photo, which I find fascinating.
- We play the piano and any other instrument lying around. Seeing how close our neighbors live, my dad rarely plays the trumpet at home. But both my parents play the ocarina, half of us play the piano, and my dad and baby sister have a great voice. Not quite the Japanese Von Trapp family, but we do appreciate music. And my brother lets us know whether it's good music or not with his facial expression :)
- This is just us girls (mom+sisters) but we have a drawer full of manga we collected during our junior high/high school years. I have a number of Mitsuru Adachi's older manga. Also very old school manga like Hot Road and Tenshi Nanka Janai. My sisters also have various series such as Naruto and One Piece. When we have the time, we all just grab a manga and dive in. This time I finally read the entire series of Slam Dunk! (And yes, it was good as every one says it is!)
Wow, this ended up being a fairly long post. But then again, I do tend to be long-winded when it comes to family. Don't we all? (What, no?)
Well, I have a few other Silver Week posts coming up, so you've been warned!
Here are some photos:
