Winter illuminations in Japan constitutes a big part of winter celebrations around Christmas and New Year holidays.
Urban metropolis like Tokyo puts their best foot forward in the celebration by decorating trees and buildings with colourful lights. Busy streets and famous malls are transformed into winter wonderlands by these sparkling and glittering snow-like LEDs in different shapes and forms.
Generally, winter illuminations in Tokyo starts around mid-November, peaks in December and some lasts even till February.
Whether you are taking a stroll with partner or friends, or outing for holiday shopping, these lights would rejuvenate your spirits during gloomy winter months. Check out top free things to do in Tokyo if you are budget.
Here are some of the best winter illuminations spots from our experience in Tokyo, Japan.
1) Yomiuriland Jewellumination
Yomiuriland amusement park offers an exclusive spectacular large scale winter illuminations also know as Jewellumination by a well-known Motoko Ishii lightning design collection.
Truly justified by its literal meaning, this Jewellumination brings the park’s life by glittering gemstone colors of Diamond, Ruby, Amber, Topaz, Emerald, Sapphire and Amethyst.
This year, there are 12 fantastical areas based on the theme of “Jewel Olympus” and decorated with a record-breaking 6.5 million LED bulbs.
Please check our blog post on this famous Jewelluminations here.
2) Tokyo Midtown & Roppangi Hills Winter Illuminations
Every year, Tokyo Midtown arrange this grand festive winter illumination event. It not only includes vibrant tree illuminations and popular ice skating ring, but unique and exciting sculptures too.
Concentrating on concept of “Vivid”, this year attraction is a snow globe, which demonstrated the trapped beautiful variation of the four seasons. There is a giant Christmas tree installed at the centre of the event area.
Next closest spot one should definitely visit is Roppongi Hills where whole complex and aesthetic street gets illuminated with some 70,000 LEDs for the winter celebration.
The illumination goes all the way along Keyakizaka-dori, Mohri Garden and Roku-Roku Palace with a magnificent Christmas tree.
3) Marunouchi Winter Illuminations
Around 340 trees of Naka-dori (street is dori in Japanese) in Marunouchi gets decorated and lit by about 1.2 million gold lights like Champagne. This yearly event stretches along Otemachi Naka-dori and Tokyo Torch Park.
Being close to Tokyo station, tourists are recommended to visit these streets. Many restaurants and cafes offer terrace seats for perfect romantic and relaxing dinner.
4) Tokyo Dome City Winter Illuminations
The winter illuminations and decorations at Tokyo Dome city is considered as one of the most attractive and flashiest winter illumination event in Tokyo. In 2022, they concentrated all their decorations on one theme as “Illumination that makes you want to take photos” and completely justifies it.
One of the things that attracted me the most is that these are eco-friendly illuminations which use recycled wood and reusable housing materials.
They have four main areas
- Photo spots,
- Main tree,
- Milky way and,
- Champagne Gold Illuminations.
The Photo spots is the newest addition in 2022 which use reflective mirrors to create tunnel effect.
The gorgeous Christmas tree on Crystal Avenue has shades of champagne gold, white, red, blue, purple, and orange embarked with millions of LEDs and ornaments.
The surrounding area gets a even more shiny look because of this decorated tree.
The Milky way tunnel at LaQua Area features a 140-meter long illuminated passageway filled with light.
The trees running along MEETS PORT Garden and LaQua Garden are decorated with champagne gold illuminations creating a special lit up romantic walkway.
5) Tokyo Skytree and Solamachi Illuminations
Do you know, Tokyo Skytree is the tallest tower in the world and second tallest structure in the world after the Burj Khalifa with 634 meters.
Tokyo Skytree is one of the must-to-visit tourist spot in Tokyo which no-one wants to miss.
Starting from Christmas season, the Skytree tower and Tokyo Solamachi building adopt a yellow gold champagne color depicting a Christmas tree during winter illuminations.
There are around 400,000 LEDs decorating the surrounding building at the foot of Tokyo Skytree and tress to completely indulge one in the celebration mode.
There is also an ice-skating ring where one can enjoy gliding near the foot of the Tokyo skytree and glowing illuminations all along.
You can even check its lightning schedule in this website. Check Here.
There are many more beautiful winter illuminations spots in Tokyo which I can recommend.
- Yebisu Garden Palace, with “Baccarat ETERNAL LIGHTS” a 5 m large Baccarat chandelier.
- Meguro River Minna no Illumination, decorated by 350,000 pink LED lights giving the vibes of cherry blossoms.
- Ometosando Street, where the shopping streets lined with Zelkova trees are lightened by over 90,000 champagne gold LEDs.
- Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, which showcases gradation coloured streetlights decorating trees and garden area.
- Odaiba Winter Illuminations, with illuminations contrasting the night view of Tokyo city. Also, you can visit Rainbow Bridge Odaiba all around year for photography and fun time.
Note: Many places from above recommended list also very famous of Cheery blossom, which starts just after winter illuminations. Check out our article for best places to see cherry blossom in Tokyo.
