Japan's Silver Week holiday exodus got under way on Saturday with trains and planes reporting full loads.
Silver Week occurs about once every six years when three national holidays in September run consecutively. This Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are holidays, allowing many people to take a five-day break.
JR East said its Tokaido Shinkansen trains were running at 170% capacity on Saturday morning, while Tohoku Shinkansen trains were at 150%, Fuji TV reported.
Meanwhile, according to the Japan Road Traffic Information Center, at 2 p.m., traffic was backed up for 29 kilometers on the Tomei Expressway at the Atsugi Interchange, and 18 kilometers on the Chuo Expressway at Sagamiko in Kanagawa Prefecture, and 17 kilometers on the Kanetsu expressway in Saitama Prefecture.
Airlines reported that domestic flights from Haneda and Osaka airports were full on Saturday.
The return rush is expected to peak on Wednesday afternoon.
© Japan Today
22 Comments
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gokai_wo_maneku
Shinjuku is packed! Well, I understand.
Christopher Glen
All the more reason to stay at home
Kobe White Bar Owner
Just like Obon, me and mine will be leaving in the middle (Mon) and returning after (Thur) just to miss the "exodus".
Monozuki
Apparently, we'd better stay at home during this big consecutive holidays, though it's not a silver bullet. Besides, I'm not so young...
TorafusuTorasan
Exodus, movement of Jah people!
AJSPeikaiwa
As I and mine take ours at a time and place fitting to her and my capabilities and slowing down in recent times of at least my MacBook battery capacity, and getting the chardonnay shipped out on time, simply call us old fashion.
m6bob
At 6:10am in Haneda Airport, only 2 tickets were available on the 2:50pm Tohoku Shinkansen to Shin Aomori! Lucky! Have a good holiday, people in Japan!
clamenza
I know theres a coherent statement in there somewhere. There must be...
zones2surf
@Clamenza,
Absolutely! Getting the chardonnay shipped on time.... but maybe minus a few bottles?! :-)
suzuran8061945wasurenagusa
Prices of International Airline tickets rocketed to as high as double their regular prices. Good that I am going outside the country. Bad that in my return it would surely take me hours to reach home by car 'cuz of the holiday-rush. A relaxing Silver Week to everyone in Japan.
jerseyboy
Now there's a nice relaxing start to a "vacation" if I've ever heard of one.
Rik314
Can everyone get off the Tohoku Expressway between 6 and 8 am tomorrow out-bound from Tokyo and between 5 and 7 pm in-bound.
Cheers.
wtfjapan
The Chugoku express way is not far from my home, theres a bottleneck where the traffic is always heavy and slow on weekends and really bad during long holidays, when I use the small access rd that runs parallel to it I love to give an enthusiastic wave to the poor sods stuck in the traffic. Sadly very few wave back!?
clamenza
Dan Lewis
AJSPeikaiwa
sorry..,
i did stretch not much into a lot of words a few (fill in the blank) back. basic meaning? we go on on our own clocks to our our own destinations contrary to what jp society tries to package up and have us buy / fit into (apart from the joseph drouhin chardonnay. i can get drohin here. And let me imbibe upon you, without spell check, i'll buy / crawl into that wine-importer's wino-making wine, without a second thought as to whose credit card said bottle runneth over on) ... now where was I?
kitzrow
My university has regular classes, but we started late. ....
since1981
Just another Government control vacation period for the overworked and over stressed work force.
wtfjapan
*Do they wave back? Yes? No? * yes I get the occasional puzzled wave back, but probably less than 5% of the times ive tried.
Tessa
Actually a really nice time of year to take a local break (minus the typhoons, of course).
wtfjapan
Actually a really nice time of year to take a local break not as good as taking a break when you want too, you know when everybody else isnt on holidays. If I had to choose between 4 weeks of holidays a year when everybpdy else is holidaying or 2 weeks every year when I want to go, the 2 weeks would win every time