by Sam Jarrett

Traveling to Japan over the holiday and new year period can be a very popular time for tourists, especially those looking for a snow adventure. Usually by the start of January, probably due to people's leave limits, people start to leave, but if you stay just a week or so longer, you will get to see something spectacularly beautiful and so uniquely Japanese. Seijin no Hi (or, Coming of Age day, a national holiday) is a special day for young Japanese adults who have recently turned twenty to celebrate reaching maturity. 

Each year on the holiday, which is held on the second Monday of January, newly 20-year-olds gather in the early hours of the morning at local council offices to attend a Seijin-shiki, or coming of age ceremony. All Japanese young-adults who are residents in the local area are invited to attend the ceremony, where government officials give speeches on adulthood, and the new responsibilities that their newest adults will now have, before gifts are given as a kind of welcome present.