January 3, 2010 by Rok | Culture & Tradition, Events, Miscellaneous | Add your comment »

Celebrating New Year the Japanese way

New Year celebrations are over and we can move on! How did it turn out here in Japan? Like every year, most people wait for midnight usually in temples, some stay home and some celebrate somewhere outdoors. We decided to go to Nishiarai Daishi temple which is one of the three main Daishi temples in Tokyo area.

What does it look like when you visit a big Japanese temple on New Year Eve? Crowd, crowd, crowd! People are packed like sardines in a can, yet still somehow they make sure they don’t walk you over. You just might think you found yourself in the middle of some peaceful mass protest. Around the temple grounds you can find booths with all kinds of traditional New Year food. Here and there you might come across a Turk selling kebab and slicing the meat with a respectably sized knife while yelling out irasshaimase, irasshaimase (“welcome”) in perfectly sounding Japanese. You might even see a fortune teller waiting for customers inside a tent. Most everyone seems to ignore them, though.

Crowded grounds at Nishiarai Daishi temple.

Most people visit a temple with intent to pray for their wishes. Their prayer is not meant for some specific god or deity but it depends on each person and you can wish for anything you want. Outside the temple you’ll see a long line of people waiting to make their first wishes in the new year as they pass the time chatting and typing on cell phones. Because there are too many of them, teams of security guards let them enter the temple in large groups, one at a time. We waited there for about 30 minutes.

Hordes of people on the stairs to the temple, some rolling upstairs, some downstairs.

A maze of booths.

Darumas for sale! Daruma is a traditional Japanese New Year symbol. They come in various sizes, anywhere from 1 cm to 1 meter and maybe even more.

A nearby street that leads to the temple had shops and restaurants open all night.

December 30, 2009 by Rok | Culture & Tradition, Events | Add your comment »

Shinjuku sparkles in white and blue for the holidays

Earlier we checked out the glitzy chandelier in Ebisu, now let’s take a train ride a few minutes further to Shinjuku. After working our way through the crowd in Shinjuku Station, the world’s busiest rail station that transports something 4 million passengers per day, we exit through the Southern Terrace Exit and step on a long terrace that’s been decorated with sparkling white and blue lights for the holidays. The illumination is called Shinjuku Southern Lights.

Our teeth are chattering in the freezing cold wind, but we keep on walking and ignore the warmth that’s radiating from the Starbucks on the left.

Penguin is a mascot of the Suica rail pass that's issued by JR East.

December 30, 2009 by Rok | Culture & Tradition, Events | Add your comment »

Baccarat Eternal Lights: Illuminations in Ebisu

We’re still rolling around Tokyo and looking for holiday illuminations. Around this time in Yebisu Garden Place in Ebisu (until January 11, 2010) you can enjoy Baccarat Eternal Lights where you will see a respectable 5 meters tall and 3 meters wide crystal chandelier, handcrafted by the famous French glassware manufacturer Baccarat. This upper-class chandelier that won’t fit in your room is composed of 8,472 crystal pieces and 250 light bulbs.

Taking the escalator through the Ebisu station, you'll see signs for the chandelier.

The path to the holy object in the central square is lined with illuminated trees.

The chandelier is of course protected by glass, so nobody would accidentally climb on it.

Finest detail!

On the opposite side of the chandelier, there's a chateau restaurant Taillvent-Robuchon.

December 27, 2009 by Rok | Culture & Tradition, Events | Add your comment »

Tokyo Dome City illuminations

The thermometer shows 7 degrees Celsius, cold wind is blowing down from Kamchatka, but that won’t prevent us from continuing our holiday crusade around illuminated Tokyo. Tokyo Dome City in Suidobashi is a large complex of shops, restaurants, an amusement park and a domed stadium where they put some serious effort into making the place look as fancy as possible for the holidays.

The lights are scattered all around but just on the right places to make the scene look fantastic without overdoing it.

Even Johnny Depp the pirate would be delighted by a lustrous ship like this one.

Whoever did this wasn't lacking creativity!

A brave Ultraman posing for photos.

Let's go up the stairs and we'll see an intimidating view of a giant ferris wheel. A little further through the entrance to LaQua we can find a good selection of shops and restaurants.

A quick glance to the left and we'll see a long line of people who just finished attending a concert by Mr. Children, a band that performed in Tokyo Dome tonight.

Let's follow the crowd through a hypnotic tunnel of changing colors.

A UFO has landed somewhere near Starbucks, just in time for the holidays.

Under the festive dome that somehow reminds on a Byzantine basilica, we can sit down, watch big screen TV and chat a little.

Yet another space ship, parked in front of the ice cream shop Baskin & Robbins.

As we break through the 30 minutes long line for women's restroom, we go back through the tunnel that just changed into shades of blue and green.

We reach Depp's ship again.

A view of the domed stadium from the bridge in front of Tokyo Dome Hotel.

Time to go back home as the lights will shut off at midnight.

Nearing the exit, we can't miss this altar of sparkling unicorns.

December 26, 2009 by Rok | Culture & Tradition, Events | Add your comment »

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.

Ljudstvo z mobi

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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