Anime Magazine: Tokyo illuminations

Its the festive season again - which means that the streets of Tokyo are lined with a load of illuminations made up of a zillion LED's.

While Christmas in Japan looks great - its celebrated for different reasons over here - mainly for pulling in the punters which the illuminations do. As you can see from this first photo - illuminations are taken down on Christmas night with no trace of them the next day.

By the 26th with all the decorations pulled - its time to put up a completely different set of decorations for the new year.

Today we take a lookie at Christmas illuminations located around Roppongi Midtown, Galleria, Starlight Garden, Keyaki-zaka Street, Mori Building, Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree.

First up is Tokyo Midtown which is a few minutes walk from Roppongi station. To get to Roppongi, get off at Roppongi station on the Toei Oedo Line. Address as follows:

〒107-0052 東京都港区赤坂9-7-1
View location with Google Maps

At the Midtown Galleria. During Christmas season, you can find all sorts of Christmas decorations for your home and office.

The "Santa Tree" comprised of 1800 mini Santa figures.

Now moving onto Starlight Garden 2013 situated right outside Midtown - this year marks its 7th year anniversary and the entire garden is covered by 280,000 LED lightbulbs.

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Folks can also get their picture taken with the illumination in the background for 1,050 yen.

If you don't have any girlfriend or wifey to take photos with then fear not ^o^

The walkway outside is also decorated with these blue and white LED lightings - very nice place to stroll around.

And now heading towards Roppongi Hills.

The Roppongi Hills Keyakizaka Illumination - this year marks its 10th year anniversary and if you're in the right place at the right time you also get to see the trees lit up in bright red.

At the top of the hill, folks can also get a glimpse of the Tokyo Tower with Christmas illumination. It says "2020" to celebrate the upcoming Tokyo Olympics 2020.

The white & blue illuminations turn bright red for 10 minutes at the start of every hour from 5pm~11pm.

Mori Tower's Christmas tree comprised of 30,000 OLED candles.

Roppongi Hills Christmas Market 2013 - here you can find seasonal noms and also cute decorations.

How many of you have already seen 47 Ronin?

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Wreaths, pine cones, stars, plushies and more.

At West Walk, folks will be greeted by these giant mirror ball decorations hovering above called "Joy to the Love".

Also took a few snaps around Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree.

And lastly the Tokyo Skytree. Address as follows:

〒131−0045 東京都墨田区押上一丁目1番13号
View location with Google Maps

The glowing stairs of Solami-zaka and Hanami-zaka.

The illumination on Skytree changes daily and you can also see it lit up in red, lime green, blue and purple. For details, check out this page.

Tokyo Skytree's official mascot character "Sorakara-chan".

Wire frame illumination featuring Sorakara-chan, Teppenpen and Sukoburuburu.

Skytree Town projection mapping illumination. Check out the vid below to see it in action.

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Christmas tree, approximately 634cm tall (1/100 of the Skytree).

And like with the previously visited Roppongi Hills, Skytree also has a European style market where they serve beer, wine and noms.

Check out the links below for more Places to Visit in Japan.