#Tōkyō

Our flight back home isn’t until late in the evening. We took the opportunity to have a bit of a look around the Tokyo Skytree. There’s a little Christmas market there where Jingle Bells plays on an endless loop and you can get “typically German” Christmas market stuff like beer, hot dogs and (cold) chips for high prices. The mulled wine was really tasty, though!

After that, we paid a visit to the Sumida Aquarium. It was a lovely place where you could chill out to some quiet music and watch the fish, penguins and jellyfish.

It’s with a heavy heart that we’re starting our journey back now. This was our fifth visit to the Land of the Rising Sun, and once again we’ve experienced great things, seen interesting places and met friendly, open-minded and curious people. It definitely won’t have been our last trip to Japan.

Tōkyō has a lot to offer for photography fans.

Want to go high up? The Tōkyō Sky Tree has an observation deck at a breezy height of 450 metres. From up there, the other skyscrapers look like miniatures.

Prefer nature and bright colours? The Rikugi-en garden offers gorgeous scenes, especially in autumn.

Fancy a light show? The Tōkyō Mega Illumination definitely isn’t exaggerating with its name. Where horse races normally take place, a colourful course of lights, tunnels, laser shows, music and nature sounds has been set up. The splendour just can’t be described in words.

Sadly, this brings our stay in Japan to an end. The suitcases are packed. Tomorrow we’ll have a few more hours for a farewell tour in Tōkyō, before the plane takes us back home.

The landscape garden Rikugien in Tokyo is already a spectacle of bright colours during the day in autumn. As dusk falls, the beauty is given a really special atmosphere by spotlights, colourful light and fog machines.

The attraction is also really popular with Japanese people. Towards the evening, half of Tokyo seems to gather in the park. You jostle along the narrow paths to find a spot for nice photos. Another challenge is that tripods aren’t allowed for safety reasons, so you have to take the photos freehand. Luckily, everyone is considerate of each other, so it’s still fun and you get to take a few nice snaps home with you.

From the Yamanote station Komagome, you can reach Rikugien in a few minutes on foot. Entry costs 300¥. The park is only lit up at night during the cherry blossom and autumn leaves seasons, the rest of the time it closes at 5 pm (last entry 4:30 pm).

During the dark season in Japan, you’ll find not just Christmas decorations, but also winter lights, known as Illuminations (イルミ). Every major city decorates its streets and squares with lavish lighting and light shows.

Here’s a collection of our best illumination photos that we took back in 2018.

Some of the illuminations start as early as November, and some go on until February. If you’re visiting Japan during autumn and winter, it’s definitely worth checking out these light spectacles. Most of them are in public areas and can be seen for free, but landscape gardens and temples do charge an entrance fee.

On our last day in Tokyo, there was a colourful programme. The Icho Namiki is a ginkgo avenue that is still glowing in a magnificent yellow, even though many ginkgo trees have already lost almost all their leaves.

After that, we visited the Yebisu Garden Christmas Marché. However, the supposedly posh Christmas market consisted of just three stalls selling gift items. Next to a Christmas tree, there is also what is said to be the largest Baccarat chandelier in the world. The clock tower at Yebisu Garden Place rounded off the experience. On the hour, its musical clock depicts an Oktoberfest parade.

We would have loved to visit a very special Christmas market in Hibiya Park. It is modelled on the market in Dresden, its 14-metre-high Christmas pyramid was even imported from there. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t open its doors until the 14th of December, by which time we’ll already be back home.

Taking the Yamanote line, notorious for its packed trains during rush hour, we finally headed to two illuminations. The Shibuya Blue Cave Illumination features a light animation from trees decorated with 600,000 LEDs. The Minna no Illumi is more subtle, but no less worth seeing. Here, trees along a riverbank are decorated with pink and yellow LEDs.

Tomorrow we are travelling to the Narita district and will have a look around there for another day.