Summer holidays

This week is Obon, a time when most Japanese return to their hometowns to visit family, clean the family graves and pay their respects.

This is one of three times per year when the whole damn country goes on vacation, and traffic is horrendous! Airports are packed, the bullet trains are standing-room only, and traffic jams during the "U-Turn Rush" will be an average 30-40 miles long on highways into Tokyo. Airline tickets more than double their regular May or November rates - adult tickets to Denver jump from about 65,000 yen to 165,000.

Tickets home to Colorado for my whole family would run $11,500 for airfare alone! (now do you understand why I don't make it Stateside very often?)

The only way we'll be doing that right now is if I hit the lottery. [In a fit of bad math, I bought some tickets this time around]