Golden Week 2009

Golden Week started last Wednesday for many people who took Thursday and Friday off. For those lucky people, their holiday lasts 8 full days. A few companies, in order to cut costs, have asked contractors to take Thursday and Friday off next week as well for a total for 11 days of straight vacation.

It would normally be a good time to travel.

But with highway tolls lowered to 1000 yen for unlimited mileage, everyone is out on the roads trying to make the most of this week of vacation. Not wanting to spend hours upon hours stuck in traffic, we are limiting our travels to the immediate vicinity. We may take a short drive to Kawasaki to eat tonight.

The weather has been warm and sunny. We had some heavy rain a week or so ago, and that brought some life back to the plants. Unfortunately for us humans, the nice weather will go sour on Monday. [Update: It went bad on Monday evening and hasn't let up since (it's Thursday now)]

As for the avocados, things are looking very good. The older plant is developing a very strong set of new leaves. You can see the growth at the top of the plant. There was a second branch, but the plant seems to have decided on the larger one to continue growing. I may need to provide a little correction to make sure it continues growing straight, though.


The younger avocado had been looking very anemic in the past few months. Then we had some very strong winds and all the weak leaves fell off. What seems to have happened afterwards is that the plant has resumed growing upwards with a new set of healthy leaves and stopped trying to put so much energy into the sick leaves. Hopefully this is a good sign and the plant will be healthy from now on.