Chirstmas Lights

One would think that the Xmas lightings at Orchard Road should rival any in the world. I had slowly developed this idea as days go by here and yet most streets and shopping centers put up only a token effort at Christmas lightings compared to Singapore.

So I always feel somewhat skeptical whenever Augustine tells me about some great street in Tokyo where they put up the lightings. However, my mind was changed on Christmas Eve when I witnessed a bedazzling 5 seconds footage on the news. With nothing to do on Christmas Day, we decided to go see it for ourselves.

Millenario is near the Tokyo station (very near the imperial palace).

Tokyo Station

Almost as soon as we got out of the station, we were regretting not coming any earlier. The streets are literally stuffed full of people... perhaps even more scary than the scene in Orchard Road during New Year count down parties. But we had not eaten dinner yet and the stomach takes top priority. After some searching in the underground shopping area of Tokyo station, we found a ramen shop with a queue.

Crowded Ramen Shop

Curiosity brought us to investigate and we found pictures of celebrities eating their noodles pasted on the outside of the shop. Seems like a gourmet king type of award winning shop, so we joined into the queue too.

Poster of Calebs eating their Ramen

The interesting thing about it is that there is a scale of 1 to 30 when ordering their spicy noodles. 30 chili icons seemed like a lot to me and so I chose a 5. But I should have known better... the Japs can't hold their chilies and my bowl of ramen hardly bothered my tongue at all. The soup though, had a very nice flavor... the roasted pork was sensuously tender and the hard-boiled egg was simply magical. It was more like a 3/4 boiled egg and the yolk really melts through your tongue.

Without a doubt... this is the best bowl of noodles I have ever eaten.

After dinner, we proceeded to walk towards the street with the famed lightings. The road on that street had been closed to traffic and people thronged the road...

The jam packed street...

it was packed like a rock concert and we had to wait in line just to enter the main street. After being pushed for quite awhile, we were finally able to enter... and the reactions of Japanese around me said it all... "Tsugoii!! Kireii!! Subarashi!!" ("Wonderful!! Beatiful!! Fantastic!!")

The individual lightings might remind you of depavali, but the whole row of lightings combine to form an effect of a twilight zone. The idea is simple, but effect was great.

The neverending tunnel of lights...

While we were inching down the street and at the stroke of 9.00pm all the lights turned off. The collective response was immediate. Just recall Roberto Baggio missing the penalty in the final of World Cup USA '94... u should catch my drift...

And after most shops close for the day, busy elves get to work to transform all the Christmas decorations to that for the Japanese New Year. And by Boxing Day, the street would be magically transformed...