tokyo german village

On Sunday, I went to the Tokyo German Village in Sodegaura (I honestly have no idea why Tokyo is part of the name) to see their Christmas illumination! Despite the fact that it's a little hard to get to if you don't have a car (we had to take a taxi from the station), it was really beautiful and worth it.

When we got there it was still light out, but the lights were all already on and we could tell it was going to look amazing when it got dark - which it did. There were tons of lights spread across some little hills, including lots of the parks characters, which for some reason seem to be mostly half-pig half-angel (according to their site here).

Anyway, we ran across lots of fun designs such as a dragon spread out over the hills and hot air balloons, plus things like flamingos, penguins, and Santa in a boat! There was also a magician performing tricks and a light tunnel leading to the ferris wheel. Unfortunately there was a very long line even to get tickets, so we didn't think it was worth it to wait (I do love ferris wheels though), but if I come back I'll be sure to get on it next time!

I think in this case pictures will do better than words to convey what it was like, so I'll end my description here. The illumination is going on until March, so there's still lots of time to go see it if you're in Japan!