Illuminations: Tokyo At Night During Holiday Season

Once the air gets chilly and the atmosphere turns a bit towards the holiday cheerfulness of late November thru the New Year, many parts of the Tokyo Metropolitan area become lit up at night, and in some cases magnificently so.

Yebisu Garden

So magnificent in fact, that it almost makes you want to leave the warmer comforts of home and go out into the cold night to see those illuminations with your own eyes.  Well, almost.  But really, once you get yourself in some warm gear and perhaps arm yourself with a cheerfully hot beverage, it becomes a pretty fun experience.

Shinjuku

As previously mentioned, there are many places to take in the season's illuminations in Tokyo, but since this is my web space I'll focus on the three best places to go to, in my humble opinion (and they are all free of charge):

#3 Caretta Shiodome

The illuminations at Caretta Shiodome is compressed into a small area, especially compared to practically every other illumination in Tokyo, but it does pack a lot of light for the given area.  Also, the lights go pretty high up:

In addition to it being a great place for taking a photo, there are musical presentations in sync with the lights, which brings you into the atmosphere of the holidays even more with that added sense of sound brought on.  It's definitely worth a visit, especially if you haven't seen the illumination at Shiodome before.  The only negative I can think of is the crowds, because of the small area... but it can be avoided if you visit on a weeknight.

#2 Roppongi Hills

On a much bigger scale, I present to you the illuminations at Roppongi Hills.

Location:



Maybe it's not so easy to find, but go to Roppongi Station, find one of the exits that lead to Roppongi Hills, and then head south... find your way to Keyakizaka Dori (the street with the high end shops such as Tiffany & Co, Salvatore Ferragamo, etc).  Speaking of those high end shops, they do lend a bit to the holiday atmosphere, reluctant as I may be to actually say that.

But overall the lighted trees here are very nice, stretch out for about 500 km along both sides of Keyakizaka street, and the buildings themselves also provide a beautiful background.  And on occasion, depending on the time of year, the colors will change to reflect the fall season:

And, Tokyo Tower can be seen further out, making for an even nicer photo:

#1 Shibuya Blue Cave Illumination

Location (starting point):

My favorite of all the illuminations, the Blue Cave packs the most bang for the buck, in my opinion.  It's a 1 km walk with a lot to see.  Start out from Shibuya Station, find the Hachiko exit and move on across the famous Shibuya Crossing, walk past the Starbucks on the right side.  Video below will help illustrate this part:

You'll start seeing the blue lighted trees, which will lead you all the way to the Blue Cave located at Yoyogi Park.  Along the way you'll find yourself walking among many others in the quest for the Blue Cave, and will see a lot of the interesting shops, places and architecture that make up the identity of Shibuya.

If you need relief/assistance in dealing with the cold air and wind, there's also several cafes, a couple of Starbucks, and many convenience stores along the way.

Having followed the blue brick road (sans bricks, mostly), you'll arrive at the blue cave illumination.  Very cool and wonderful!

At the end of the blue cave, there is a pretty interesting mirror house.  Worth a visit, as you can see from the laughs and confusion we experienced in there:

Having reached the endpoint, Harajuku Station is closer should you need to get on the train from this point.  Or you could go back the way you came.  Both have their plusses and minuses, but you can't go wrong either way as both directions have additional treats in store for you in the evening, such as the illuminations at Omotesando Avenue near Harajuku Station, and the Shibuya nightlife.  The blue cave area, the walking leading up to it, and having a plethora of food/drink/entertainment/sightseeing options on top of the experience itself is what makes this illumination experience the best for me.


Overall recommendations:

- Dress warmly!
- If you're after the perfect image, bring multiple cameras.  Sometimes the phone camera captures a better image of the lights among the darkness than a true camera, and vice versa.  It's a toss up.
- Go with a friend or two, or more.  It's cold enough out there as it is, so experiencing it with the figurative/literal warmth of friends makes it a bit more bearable at least.  Also, selfies can be tricky if you want to commemorate the moment on photo, so having someone to take photos of you is a great backup plan.