Lightopia 2009: Holiday lights glow in Tokyo
What’s going on in the heart of Tokyo these days? Lightopia is a festival of sparkling, ecologically conscious light bulbs that takes place this year from 21st to 29th of December and illuminates various locations around Tokyo Station, Imperial Palace, business districts of Marunouchi and Yurakucho, and the Tokyo International Forum. Every year, Lightopia is dedicated to the concept of “Earth, Environment, Peace”.
Let’s take a stroll.
Just as you exit the Tokyo Station and enter the small street between the buildings of the Tokyo International Forum, you'll be greeted by the holiday spirit of lights and shiny booths where this year they sell Christmas goods from Strasbourg (France). Strasbourg is where the Christmas Tree tradition began a few hundred years ago.
A few streets ahead you'll reach the entrance to the Kokyo Gaien park that houses the palace of the Japanese Emperor himself. The walls along the canal are decorated with hanging white lights named "Hikarigumo" (light clouds).
Another view from Wadakurabashi bridge.
Glowing waterfalls. Quite impressive and visually pleasing! The only thing missing here is a samurai-themed Tom Cruise lurking under the pines.
A little further you'll reach an area with fountains where you can enjoy the view of the Ambient Candle Park. This is an open installation of paper lights that were painted by school kids, illustrating the theme of Earth, environment and peace.
A total of 600 lights can be seen here!
Let's go back over the bridge towards one of the main streets in Marunouchi and take a festive ride in one of the shiny velo-taxis that cruise around here.
Our next stop is "Flower Fantasia" where about 850,000 LED lights illuminate a 1.1 km long street.
Hanging flower bouqets and thousands of lights.
Onlookers taking photos by their cell phones.
The illuminations decorate both sides of the street.
Neat ground lights!
That's why it's called Flower Fantasia.
At the entrance to one of the flower shops you can find a rather delicious looking but inedible Christmas cake made of flowers.
Shops put a lot of effort to decorate their windows.
Let's end our walk a few blocks further away under a modernistic Christmas tree in front of the monumental entrance to the Yurakucho Denki Building.
Here's a map of this year's Lightopia. The green area below is the Tokyo Station, the yellow at the top is the park of the Imperial Palace, and the pink areas between the streets are the main attractions.
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