When the Christmas decorations come down, which they do on December 26 if not sooner, they are replaced with traditional new yer
ars decorations made from bamboo and pine branches. They will only stay until offices open again on January 3, although since many offices do not open until January 7, they may stay until then.
In resudential areas temporary shacks selling new years decorations start appearing just before Christmas. They are usually affiliated with a nearby shrines and the decorations have religious significance. You are supposed to destroy them by burning them at the shrine the year after.

The Chinese new year used to be the same time of year, but when Japan adjusted the calendar and the calendar year became the official year instead of lunar year during the Meji revolution, the end of the year became the end of the calendar year.
​People go visit the shrine at New Years Day, eat soba noodles, and special new years dishes. It is more like Thanksgiving in the US than New Year anywhere else. However, this year is a bit different: It is the last new year of the Heisei era, since the old emperor (and he is really old) steps down in April and hands the throne to his son. There will be several public holidays in May celebrating this. So products with the Japanese year written on them will be excellent souvenirs.

So what does this mean for travelers with children? With museums closed, public gardens closed, attractions not open, and the most fun thing to do is visiting shrines. There are lots of them, not just the Meji shrine. Many are even more interesting, like the shrine to admiral Togo in Shibuya, the undisputed victor of the biggest fleet battle of the Russo-Japanese War and the only Japanese admiral who has had a Finnish beer named after him. There is also the Yasakuni shrine, which is fascinating whatever you think about its precepts. The Yushukan war museum is open on New Years Day, but there are several days during end of December when it will be closed, so check the website before you go. There is also the Kanda Myojin, one of the grandest shrines in Tokyo.
Japanese shrines are dedicated not to personified gods like the Greek temples, but forces of nature, sometimes personified as emperors. Or admirals. The hatsumode, the visit to the shrine at the first day of the new year, is a great time to see Japanese traditions. And the shrines are not as crowded as you might think.

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As people often ask how much luggage storage space there is on the Shinkansen trains, let me show you. Our suitscase who is doing the modelling is 85 x 55 x 30 cm including the wheels. If you try to put it in the overhead rack it sticks out by about 1/3 of the width, which is a little too much to be safe.

You can barely squeeze in a suitcase, and not all cars have this space. On some trains (a little newer) there is an actual luggage rack.

The seats on the trains turn around so the riders always face forward, even when the train is going in the other direction. That means there is a space at the end of the cars behind the seats.

Then, there is a storage space behind the last row of seats. The tables do not move and it is very small. Those seats do not recline, since the tables are fixed. That is on the side with two seats. On newer trains the trays fold up, but the space is still limited.

On the other side of the aisle, where there are three seats, you can squeeze in a whelchair. Or two strollers.
And that is the sum of the luggage storage space in a Shinkansen car. No wonder most people prefer to send their luggage ahead.

The Japanese winter is not really cold. At least not for someone used to the snow and cold of borthern Sweden. Which does not mean you and your kids can not get bad colds if you are not careful. You have to dress right.

In Japan, Uniqlo has a line of specially engineered clothes - Japanese high tech - that keep the heat close to the body and wicks away the sweat that would cool you off if it was allowed to stay on your skin. Ito Yokado, the department and supermarket part of the group that owns the 7-11 convenience stores, has a similar line of clothes. But while Uniqlo also has some clothes in childrens sizes using the HeatTech technology.

Uniqlo and H&M and all their competitors have clothes for a little bit bigger kids - toddlers and up. Not so much for babies in strollers. And stroller bags are unknown. The best you can do is most likely a blanket. If you have winter gear for your baby, you should bring it. If not, you need one of the specialized baby goods stores, or the department store baby departments. But the specialized baby goods stores are not located in the center, and the department stores are expensive. So if you have small kids the stores may not be much help. And watch the sizes. Our kids are five but "European size", which means they wear clothes intended for Japanese second graders.

In Japan, strangely enough for such a high-tech oriented country, thermostats often seem to have two settings only: Off and max. The Japanese traditional heaters worked that way, but that was more than two hundred years ago. Today the airconditioners in homes double as heaters, leveraging the heat pump in the air conditioner that takes the heat from the inside air and dumps it on the outside. They have very sophisticated sensors, and are able to direct the hot (or cold) air to the spots in the room where people are, achieving a comfortable temperature on the way.
But the normal way a home, or a hotel room, are heated is not that way.
In winter the train companies also switch on the heating beneath the seats. It is nice if you get wet in a rainstorm (or snowstorm), but it gets a bit too toasty on everyday trips. The seats can be uncomfortably hot, and you start worrying that your kids will burn their fingers.

The Tokyo and Kyoto areas are about 5 degrees centigrade in winter, although the temperature can get up to 15 degrees. But if it snows then the temperature can go down to zero, even if it rarely drops below. It does not snow every year either.
Most people do not really put on winterwear, at least not compared to other countries. Heattech keeps you warm with a thin sweater or jacket on, and when you enter the overheated rooms you can take it off. Many people only wear a muffler for winter clothing.

Not everyone feels warm with only underwear and a sweater, or even a winter coat. If you are sensitive, or if you are going to be outside for more than a few hours, you will want a heating pad.
In Japan, you can buy heating pads in packs of ten or more. They are packed in an airtight bag, and when you open it the air starts reacting with the chemicals in the pad, and heat up. The pads are adhesive so they stick to your clothing, keeping you warm where you need it.
Just be careful if you put the pads on your children. They do get pretty hot, not enough to cause burns but enough to be uncomfortable if you do not have a few layers of clothing in between. If you put it in the stroller, put it under the seat pad so it becomes comfortably warm.

Japanese people are as style-conscious as Italians, and design should not just be functional, it should be fun as well. But while old standbys are kept on market as long as they sell, every year sees a flood of novelties combining high tech and high design. It can be anything from hot water shoes (to keep your feet warm in the same way as a diver does, bu without getting wet), and USB-enabled socks and mittens with built in heaters. To find the novelty goods, go to Tokyu Hands, a big department store that specializes in home goods and DIY supplies.

If you want to find out more about my upcoming books about traveling to Japan with children, go to the book

Onboard the trains, both private and those run by JR, there is a number of rules you should follow. These are not unwritten rules – on the contrary, there are posters in the stations and the trains telling you how to behave on the trains, and stickers to remind you to give up the “silver seats”, as the seats reserved for elderly, people with disabilities, and parents with babies are known.

Make sure your children sit still (and do not put their shoes on the seats). Running about is not only disturbing other passengers; since they do not understand Japanese, they will not understand announcements declaring that the train is stopping suddenly, or that the train is about to change tracks. Small children can fall and hurt themselves

If you frop something on the track, do not risk your life trying to retrieve it. Even if it is your childs favorite toy and she is screaming blood murder. Get the staff and ask them to pick it up for you. They know the timing of the trains and they have a really long thing with a grip at the end that quickly gets whatever it is off the tracks. Japanese subways do not have a third rail (at least not in Tokyo) but the trains can not stop if someone is on the tracks, so do mot risk it. Especially not for a stuffed toy.
If you mslay something on the train, you can be certain that it will be in the lost-and-found office the next day. If you forgot something on the train that just left, the staff may be able to ask the staff at the next station to pick it up and hold it for you. Japanese service is like that.

Lining up in a proper line in front of the train doors, and letting people get off the train before you try to enter, is another positive behavior you will find advertised on posters around the stations. So is making sure to line up behind the yellow line. This line is often paved with studs for blind people to feel with their white canes, so try to stand behind it. If you have a toddler you may want to make sure they hold your hand, as they may run around or cross the line to see the oncoming trains. This can be quite dangerous if the station does not have platform doors, since stations are often passed by express trains on the track closest to the platform (there may only be one), and this can mean they are pulled along by the wind from the passing train. It can happen to strollers too, so make sure to have a good grip and stand it at an angle to the platform edge.

Once you get on you may find people yield their seats to your children (but not to you). But in the morning and evening, the manners of tired commuters go out the window, and they may even grab the seat before you instead of giving it up. To say something would be to shame them publicly though and that is even more impolite. Instead, do like the Japanese do: Stand in front of the seat you want them to give up, and make your children make a show of how tired they are, without directly asking the person. This may seem strange to you, but in Japan it is perfectly normal, since once you are in the seat, it is yours until you give it up. Regardless of the rules. But if the need of the person in front of you is bigger, then Japanese will feel they have to comply.

There are huge signs in the station warning you against walking and texting. Apart from people who are drunk on their way home from parties, this must be one of the biggest dangers on the crowded and narrow train and subway platforms. And in the trains it is a nuisance too, as in the picture above. Not bothering others is the golden rule when it comes to smartphone usage on Japanese trains, like everything else.

When you bring a stroller you can usually put it close to the seats, but be careful not to block the door for people getting on or off. And do not block the door between the cars for people who are going through. If your child is asleep, you can keep her in the stroller. If you take her up, try to keep her quiet, as being quiet onboard the train is one of the rules written on the signboards in the stations, and featured in (often humorous) posters declaring that you should not chat loudly, talk loudly on your mobile phone, or generally disturb other passengers.

 When bringing a stroller, you should look for the sign at the step which says where the silver seats are. They are usually in the ends of each car, and the seats themselves are a different color. Chances are that if you bring children in a stroller, you will get a seat there. But you may also want to check if there is a wing sign (羽) since that means the air conditioning is weaker in that car. In summer, Japanese tend to turn the air conditioning up high, and while the air is no warmer than in other cars, you do not have to put your babies in a cold wind if you choose those (the character in this context does not mean wings, but weak).

There is one thing to remember about taking trains in Japan, and especially in the big cities, that is not written anywhere on the trains or stations. It is that you should not even try trying to take trains and subway during morning rush hour. This is when people try to squeeze on the trains and the staff attempt to make sure their limbs and luggage are not sticking out and blocking the doors so they can not close. Give the trains a miss between 7 AM and 9:30 AM on working days.

A rule that actually is unwritten is that you should not eat on the trains. Generally, eating in Japan is a much more disciplined activity than eating in many other countries, both because of the crowded circumstances and because of the Japanese attitude to eating, which involves eating only when you have your own private space. This does not apply to small children who are excempted from most rules anyway.
Drinking is allowed, including alcoholic drinks, but in moderation. And there are no toilets on the local trains if you drink too much. There may be some on the long-distance lines that cross Tokyo on their way to somewhere els, but unless you specifically boatded such a train, you have no guarantees.

☐ Do not take the train between 7 AM and 9:30 AM during working days. It is too crowded to travel with children.
☐ Put your phone in “manner mode” (the ring signal on mute) and do not talk on the phone. And do not walk and text. It is even more dangerous than walking and talking.
☐ Always let passengers get off before you get on.
☐ Offer your seat to the elderly or infirm.
☐ Take off your backpack or wear it in front, so you do not bump into other passengers.
☐ Find the car with the weak airconditioning.
☐ Avoid bringing heavy luggage onto the train, do like the Japanese and send it ahead.
☐ Do not speak loudly to others in your party or on the mobile phone.
☐ Do not eat on the local trains. Drinking is OK. Small children are excempt from the rule.
☐ If your kids play on the seats, take off their shoes.
☐ If you drop something on the tracks, call the station staff.
☐ Try to keep your kids quiet. That babies scream is unavoidable, but try to make your toddlers be quiet.

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Yesterday, the Cabinet put a law before the Parliment making the day of ascension to the Imperial throne of the Crown Prince a public holiday. And the following day will also be a holiday. So now it is official: the Japanese will suddenly have Golden Week holiday from April 27 to Monday 6 in 2019. And this is on top of the governement mandate to take five days of paid holiday every year. But it will revert to more normal holidays in 2020. Unless the government declares holidays for the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

Golden Week was already the preferred holiday week of the Japanese people, mostly since it meant taking three days off to get five days leave . Some years only
two days. But this year, the government is giving everyone a present: An entire vacation week. For families, three days extra pay is nothing to sneeze at, even if they will have to take it out as salary in April the year after.

The current emperor is really old. He has ruled since 1989, and is 84 years old now. People get tired and frail at that age. Our grandma spends most of the time watching TV. I am pretty sure the Emperor would do the same, but he is going around the country visiting his people, meeting foreign ambassadors, dining with visiting heads of state, and so on. He did a fantastic job supporting people after the Great Northeast Japan earthquake, that led to the Fukushima disaster. You can see that he wants to retire.

Akihito, the current emperor, will step down on April 30, the day after the holiday that celebrates his father, usually known as Hirohito in the West but the Showa emperor in Japan. His son Naruhito will take over on May 1. Making May 1 a holiday means both April 30 and May 2 become holidays, since they are sandwiched between other holidays. So suddenly the entire week is a holiday, and ending with a long weekend.
The ascension ceremony is not until October, so there will be an extra holiday then.

Much as it pains me to say so, you should not come to Japan between April 27 and May 6. It will be crowded everywhere. Worse than usual, and that was already crowded, as I have written about before. If you can, go after May 6. Then everybody will be at work, and the hotels and especially the ryokan will be empty, more or less. However, museums will be open (it is part of their job as educational institutions), and temples and shrines will not close. Stores will likely keep open, as people on vacation shop more than people at work. Trains will most likely run normal schedules, but there will not be any rush hours, different from the ordinary working days I have written about before.

If the potential crowds and full hotels are not enough to make you less interested in coming during Golden Week 2019, here is something plenty of people have pointed out: The prices in hotels after May 6 are half, or even less than half. That is pretty stunning and tells you that May will be a very good time to visit Japan, especially as it is sandwiched between Golden Week and the rainy season. With great weather and small crowds. What is there no to like?

Every shopping street with visitors from outside the area has at least one: A stand where not only do they make crackers in front of your eyes, toast them over a fire and dip them in soy sauce and add spices - if they want it.

Senbei is a Japanese favorite snack, and there are lots of variations. Different from other rice snacks, they are made from rice flour. The beaten dough made from glutinous rice called mochi is different. There are senbei made from mochi too, grilled or fried, like a kind of popcorn without the corn.

But the regular version is made from rice flour dough. It is kneaded and beaten to a flat disk, about half a centimeter thick and ten to twelve centimeters in diameter. And dipped in soy sauce, sprinkled with a seasoning, and dried quickly. There are wet kinds, which are soft and squishy, but senbei are commonly hard - as crackers.

The main flavor may be soy sauce, but the seasonings sprinkled on top can be spicy, or salty, or sweet. Or citrus, from the Japanese yuzu fruit. There are senbei with sesame seeds or beans baked into the dough, and those lightly dipped or soaked in soy sauce. And there are other kinds which are not round, but shaped like sausages or squares or other shapes, and which are seasoned with soy sauce absorbed by the senbei. You want to be careful with the red pepper ones. Your kids will not like them.

Senbei are great snacks, especially if your children has just got their full set of teeth. They are crunchy when you bite into them, and they are chewy once you have got them into your mouth. They contain neither sugar nor fat but the soy sauce dip gives them "umami" flavor, just like meat. And they are cheap - you can get a big bag for around 200 yen.

Welcome so much everybody! This week I had 1002 visitors. Glad you enjoy it, because there is already a lot to enjoy - and you can tell me what I should write about next.

It is so gratifying to see people interested in my sharing our experiences from traveling in Tokyo and Japan, and especially when people comment on my blog posts. Please keep the questions coming.

As I am getting closer to publishing my first book (well it is the third under my own name actually, but it is the first that builds on this blog), I am trying to spin out content from the book into the website. The book does not contain any website links - why bother with telling you things you can google yourself? And there is another goid reason not to put links in anebook: It disrupts the reading. But I know people want those links, so I will be putting them on a special web page.

As you probably have seen, we make one big trip every year. Not yet decided where to go next year, although Australia, Belgium, and Tahiti are on the shortlist. But we need to figure out when we can go and if we can get any vacation. As you may have seen the Golden Week in Japan next year will be a sequence of consecutive holidays - from April 24 to May 6 will be time off. For everyone exept store clerks and people in the hospitality industry, who will be extremely busy when families try to figure out how they should socialize when they are forced together.

We have traveled a lot more with our kids than I have written about here, and sometimes we make experiences next to home that can be valuable to you too. Japan is fascinating but there are many rules (written and unwritten) you need to follow. Especially off the beaten track. I will never forget the afternoon I spent in the rotenburo in an onsen in Gunma with a local Buddhist priest. He must have been in his 60's - but I was the first foreigner he had ever spoken to.
Paths that untrodden are hard to find. But there are many experiences that are uniquely Japanese that you can have even in Tokyo. And many more which have been slightly sanitized for tourist use. Even in Japan the customs of one part of the country seem strange to another. To say nothing of the food.

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There are accessible toilets in almost all train and subway stations. The governor has made it a mandate that Tokyo should be accessible ahead of the 2020 Olympic games, and the offial accessability guide spans 153 pages. Sometimes the signs advertising accessability can be as hard to decipher as Japanese writing. Like the elevator I wrote about
before. Accessible Japan had a good post about this.

This particular toilet is a mens toilet, that should be clear to everyone (for those hard of sight, there is a speaker declaring what kind of toilet it is - although only in Japanese).
But who else can use it? People in a wheelchair, and people who have osteomathy - the operation where your lower intestine is shortcut into a bag on your stomach.
But what about the lower row? Well, the picture of the baby must mean you can change diapers on your infants, right? But what does the lower right picture mean?
It means there is a changing table for grownups, and it is foldable. I am not sure how you use it but I am sure that for those who need it, it does come in handy.
​

I also wanted to share these directions from the Lalaport shopping center in Tachihi, two stops from Tachikawa on the Tama Monorail. They are really useful. But if you are looking for the diaper changing room, that is next door. They do provide a special notice, puctured below. Just to make it clear the babies do not have to change their own diapers.

Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, although this year the Emperors birthday is celebrated on Christmas Eve (although it actually is the day before). But Christmas Day is a normal working day. As are the rest of the days of Christmas. In Japan, new year is the big holiday.

You could have fooled me, because the entire city is full of Christmas decorations. They go up the moment the Halloween decorations come down. Literally. The stores change from one set of decorations from when they close in the evening to when they open in the morning. Sometimes the staff will literally work through the night to get all the decorations in place by morning.

About 10% of all Japanese are Christians. But close to 100% of all Japanese do some Christmas shopping. The idea of buying gifts for their loved ones has penetrated the Japanese traditions and almost every store puts up decorations to entice people to buy Christmas gifts. Of course it has not yet reached the level of giving that you see in Europe, to say nothing about buying and giving gifts in the US. But that only makes the merchants try harder.

Children in Japan are as eager as children anywhere to get a visit from Santa, although there are very few houses with chimneys and even fewer with mantles on which to hang socks. But if they have been bsd, it is not Santa who will be coming, giving them gifts. It is the Black Santa, who takes their toys away.

When KFC launched in Japan, they did not have a market. The Japanese style karaage is fried chicken but in a different size, without bones and in smaller pieces. But not too many customers made their way to the restaurants, not because they were sceptical of fried chicken or did not like it, but because there was no special reason to eat it.
So the KFC management, the story goes, decided to launch their fried chicken as a Christmas food. Nobody in Japan at the time celebrated Christmas, but people were starting to discover it. In a country which at the time was coming out of a period of occupation and American rule, there was an audience hungry for something different - literally. And so fried chicken became a fixture on the Japanese christmas table.

The other traditional Christmas food, and the reason strawberries is a spring berry in Japan, is the Christmas cake. In a country where the ground freezes only on the northern island of Hokkaido, you can start growing things in hothouses already in December.
That is exactly how the strawberries in Japan are grown. We have been picking strawberries in Tochigi, where there are more hours of sunlight than anywhere in Japan. Tochigi gets rnough sunlight that they can grow strawberries in vinyl hothouses in the middle of winter. And some strawberries they are! Juicy, full of flavor from the first to the last bite, crunchy yet soft with a deep red color, sweet yet tart with a tinge of sourness. These may be the best strawberries in the world. And then, they put them on cakes and eat them on Christmas eve.

Christmas The most important Christmas activity in Japan is window shopping. Since Japanese really have no Christmas tradition of gathering and sharing gifts, gift-giving recipients are either romantic partners or children. Santa is kept very busy in Japan, where parents traditionally have had a hard time saying no to their kids. But stores for grownups are kept as busy as the toystores, although many if most customers buy things for themselves rather than children.
​The most attractive things are not in the stores but outside, however. December in Japan is almost balmy and the sun sets around 4 PM, so it is pretty nice to take a walk (although you may want to wear a jacket). The child in the stroller will want a blanket. But then, walking around Tokyo to see the Christmas lights is a fun experience. Here are some of the places that were nice last year.
​They call them Christmas illumination, by the way, but they will normally stay until February (when the spring decor with cherry blossoms take over). If you are pressed for time you can go to Maronouchi or Tokyo Dome. If you go to Tokyo Dome your kids will demand that they get on the rides, so make it a full day. There are several kids rides that are open to kids under 5. Under 4 even.

Tokyo has embraced Christmas markets (and Oktoberfests), but they are nothing like what they were before the 2007 financial chrisis.
But there still are Christmas markets in Roppongi and Hibuya Park. They tend to be mock-Bavarian although the band playing German schlagers does a credible job of molesting "Living Next Door To Alice" (Alice? Who The F*ck Is Alice?). If that sounds mysterious, just picture yourself after a few glasses of gluhwein with a few stollen in your stomach listening to a parody of German music (99 Luftballons). And trying to convince your kids they do not want painted wooden toys.
The Christmas markets may have gotten smaller and fewer but gluhwein is slowly working itself into the Japanese consciousness as the preferred Christmas drink. In Maronouchi it has to compete with the champagne stands. But the Christmas celebrations still feel a bit lost in Tokyo, especially since the Christmas holidays are ordinary working days for most people.

You may have seen that I ask you to sign up for my newsletter at the end of each post. Well, if you just want to read and comment on the blg, there may not be any good reason. But if you want to tell me what I should help you with next, or if you want special discounts on my books, there is no better way.

This was a fun attraction at the Tokyo Dome amusement park, by the way. You pedal to produce enough electricity for your kids to ride a little Shinkansen train around a track. Or in this case, the kids pedal and Daddy is riding the train. It was their idea.
But let me tell you about the sections of the newsletter and what is in them, so you can decide if you want to sign up or not.

There are no big festivals coming up in Tokyo this month, but plenty of Halloween events. October 20-21 is the days of the festival in Kawagoe, a town northwest of Tokyo (30 min with the express train). ​

I published two posts, one about Langkawi (which was actually the first in a series - here is the second), my 100th blog post, and this week I hope to publish the second Langkawi post. Then it is back to Japan tips. Anything particular you want to know about, let me know.