Christmas illuminations

25 December 2006


Merry Christmas! This is the christmas tree on the agriculture campus. As I pass there every day when I go to/from my laboratory, I thought I should take a picture one day. So when I went for dinner together with Tobi and Mae Rose on christmas day, I thought it was a nice idea to make this "merry christmas" photo.


Here in Japan any tree can be a christmas tree. In the rest of the world the christmas tree is traditionally an evergreen (pine tree or alike) which shows natural life even in the coldest of winter. Funny however, is that the shape of the lights in the normal trees is often in a cone-shape, to still resemble a pine tree.





After having dinner we went to LaQua a shopping/restaurant/fairground/plaza next to the Tokyo Dome, to see the christmas illuminations and the water symphony (music+colorfull fountain). Unlucky as we were this time, they used famous christmas songs (including a japanese pop-song) instead of the nice classical masterpieces normally played...


The dome you see in the middle of the previous image was constructed of triangles with colorfull lights, flashing on and off in patterns (so you will find a piece more or less than the expected perfect pattern sometimes, as the timing of a photo was a bit difficult...)


Sorry for my head being on the pictures... its a drawback of the wide-angle lens.





After walking around, seeing the water symphony and having a coffee, we went a bit further to the plaza in front of the Tokyo Dome stadium. There we found many more illuminations





Also the same kind as in LaQua, but now in some geometrical shapes.





Then we went home. But on my way back, at the station where I had to transfer, I saw an advertisement of Tokyo Metro showing several places around Tokyo (close to stations) with nice illuminations. Among them this one in Shiodome/Shimbashi where I had been before several times with different people to see the cool skyscrapers there. Well, anyway, as you see I decided to go there and see the "ocean"





Around the skyscrapers there, they had several "christmas trees" made out of burning candles (each protected against wind and rain by a colored plastic cilinder)