Hello Kitty’s Kawaii Paradise at Odaiba, Tokyo

In my post about the Hello Kitty cafe in Seoul I wrote that in Hello Kitty’s home country, there is no Kitty cafe. There is however the Kawaii Paradise at Venus Fort in Odaiba, an artificial island in Tokyo. Venus Fort is a shopping mall/outlet with dozens of stores on three floors and a Venice theme, artificial sunsets included. Although the name suggests that it caters only to women, there are shops for both genders. I haven’t been to all the floors of Venus Fort (the venice theme is not in every part of the mall) though, but aren’t all shopping malls geared for women?

Hello Kitty’s Kawaii Paradise is located on the first floor (ground floor), the “family floor”. It’s next to a spacious arcade and there is no entrance fee – in fact, this place feels more like a pink-laced extension of the arcade. There are ufo catcher machines with Sanrio characters inside and purikura machines to make tiny decorated photos.

Sendai Pageant of Starlight Illumination festival

Sendai was the biggest Japanese city hit by the tsunami and earthquake, although if you walk in the city centre you will not notice it. Some roads are still blocked, however. What was lost in the tsunami were the lights for the illumination festival because they were stored near the sea. Fortunately, the organizers of the Omotesando light display offered Sendai 60000 lights. Sendai also bought new lights.

Nowadays LED lights are common which consume less energy while still allowing impressive illumination displays.

The Sendai illumination festival is one of the few which is also advertised in other Japanese cities and is used to promote tourism to the region. Sendai is the biggest city in the Tohoku region and can be reached in under two hours by Shinkansen from Tokyo.

Sendai is also known as the “city of trees” and while decorating trees with lights is done in all cities, the Sendai illumination is impressive due to its scale. The lights just don’t seem to end! There was also a santa driving around and waving to the people.

Nagoya Akari Night Illumination Festival

The last time I’ve been to Nagoya was in 2005 during the Expo in Aiichi. I didn’t stay much longer this time though, since I went to Shizuoka before and the last Hikari Shinkansen was leaving Nagoya at about 9pm. Obviously a city the size of Nagoya has a proper illumination festival, which is called the “Akari Night”.

The Nagoya Akari Night is held around the iconic Nagoya TV Tower, the oldest tv tower in Japan. The tower is illuminated of course, but they also added some additional lights at the bottom for christmas.

The small park in front of the tower was full of electric lamps, mostly in the shape of a cone. This was one of the more interesting illuminations I’ve seen so far as it used diverse designs and shapes. There was no topic, these lamps were just made to look pretty.

Lightopia Illumination Festival in Tokyo

Unlike most of the other illumination festivals, Lightopia has a very limited run, starting on the 22nd and finishing on the 29th of December. It’s an annual festival and is spread around various places near Tokyo Station.

Like the previous years, Lightopia features paper cups drawn by elementary school children who express their hopes and worries. It’s mainly about environmental issues, peace and Japan obviously. These candles are located in the area between Maru and the New Maru Building and can be seen from 5pm to 9.30pm. The organizers call the place the “Ambient Candle Park”.

The next zone, the “Flower Fantasia” has a topic too, although with no obvious images it is hard to guess just by looking at it: Hope for Tomorrow. While it was still pretty I had the impression that those flower pots were just put into their places without giving a thought about style. I liked the use of water however, giving some nice reflections.

Those were just two parts of Lightopia, there was still more.

Shinjuku Southern Lights 2011-12

This illumination festival is a must see if you happen to run a blog that has both “tokyo” and “penguin” in the title. It’s the only festival I know of that features the JR Suica penguin. There’s also a light cathedral for couples.

Shinjuku Southern Lights is held each year on the the Shinjuku Southern Terrace. There is still some construction work going on as part of a further development of Shinjuku station. The illumination festival and the businesses on the Southern Terrace are unaffected by it.

The tree illumination is pretty much standard although this year only the trees right next to the exit were decorated. In 2008 I wrote about the illumination festival and they had more lights in the trees back then.

Yurakucho Winter Illumination 2011-12

Time for new christmas illumination, this time around Yurakucho Station in Tokyo. This is one of the smaller ones, advertised in a pamphlet by Japan Rail. Plus: I revisited the Godzilla statue!

Yurakuchu is within walking distance of Tokyo Station and is a stop on the Yamanote Line. It is in a huge commercial area which provides a neon light illumination “festival” of its own every night. It’s a challenge to stand out in such a sea of light, but the Yurakucho Winter Illumination (until January 15) has a famous sponsor. Can you guess which?

Tokyo Illumination: Ebisu – Baccarat Eternal Lights

The Baccarat Eternal Lights is an annual illumination festival at the Yebisu Garden Place. The Garden Place can be reached from Ebisu Station (Yamanote Line) using the skywalk. It’s main attraction is a huge 8472 piece crystal chandelier which is switched on from 5 to 11pm.

Photographing the chandelier in its entirety is a bit of a challenge since the housing isn’t all glass and has these annoying bars which somewhat reduce the appeal of the chandelier. Also, the festival is the same every year, except for the live events of course.

The chandelier has been shown since 1999 and it’s main appeal is that it is typical European and even smaller-sized ones are usually not found in Japan. The big christmas tree at the beginning of the path that leads to the chandelier has some of the biggest christmas decorations I’ve seen so far.

Sapporo Station

JR Sapporo Station is a central transportation hub in Sapporo and the station itself is connected to multiple shopping malls. Two of the subway lines (Toho and Namboku) also stop there.

One of the shopping areas is the Stellar Place Center which was decorated for christmas and wished everyone a “very xmas”. The JR Tower has an observation deck which is higher than the one of the TV tower. But after having already been to the TV tower, I didn’t feel like paying again.

The regional JR transportation card is the Kitaca which is similar to the Suica in Tokyo. You charge the card and can then use the local transportation more conveniently. I think the Kitaca animal is cute, but it looks like it loves to jump at you from behind! I thought about getting the card just because of the animal but in Sapporo I wouldn’t use it much anyway. The subway is more convenient and for visitors, the day pass for the subway (800 Yen on weekdays, 1000 Yen for subway+bus) is a better deal. I did use my JR Rail Pass at the JR busses, when I went to the Historical Village.

Talking about cute stuff, Kiddy Land has a small shop at the station as well. They used to have a big store at Tokyo’s Omotesando Street. The Sapporo store featured lots of “girly bears” – but really, most of Kiddy Land’s toys can be considered girly.

Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo

The zoo of Sapporo is in Maruyama Park near the station of the same name. Maruyama has both local and foreign animals and since many of the latter ones aren’t accustomed to the cold temperatures, the zoo has a large number of houses where they are kept.

One of the local species is the Japanese macaques. They probably had the largest space of all species. Of course the most famous sight is seeing them in the wild, warming themselves up in a hot spring.

Tigers, lions, hyenas, giraffes, snow leopards and other animals were kept in small cages. I’ve not been to this zoo in the summer so I’m not sure whether some or all of them can go outside.

Of course, they have penguins as well

Lucky Pierrot Hamburger Restaurant in Hakodate: Christmas everyday

Theme-based restaurants are nothing special in Japan and I’ve been to a couple of them in Tokyo. Lucky Pierrot was recommended to me by a friend. It’s a hamburger restaurant where each branch uses a theme excessively. There is one which has christmas images everywhere – not only during christmas time, but through the whole year. I’ve seen a shop in Amsterdam years ago that sold christmas items the whole year, counting the days until christmas on a blackboard – “185 days until christmas”.

I’ve been to two Lucky Pierrots in Hakodate: One is opposite the Goryokaku Tower and another is near the red brick warehouses next to the Hakodate Nishihotaba Museum. The restaurants are usually open until 11pm.

There is a menu outside with names of the dishes both written in Japanese and English. Some odd burgers can be found on the list such as the Hakodate Snow Burger and the Marriage Burger.