Full admission: I’m not a tourist, I live in Yokohama, but we have family in town so we’re doing a lot more “travel.”
Yokohama has a wonderful annual winter illumination throughout the city, “[Yoru no yo.](https://yorunoyo.yokohama/)” There are spots throughout the city, with cool musical light “portals,” projections, and an amazing light “dome.” It’s all free.
I’ve always thought of winter illuminations as a “date night” thing, and with kid going to bed so early I always worried about keeping her up for the lights. But with family in town, we couldn’t resist…
Our kid is normally in bed by 7pm and we don’t normally stay out late, but with the early sunset, it’s an ideal setup for viewing illuminations with our kid. We’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well this has worked out, even with a sometimes grumpy 3 year old.
A lot of the illuminations are near Minatomirai and Akarenga, and though restaurants are often busy this time of year, since we eat at like 5pm we haven’t had any issues walking into even some nicer places.
It works out really well— grab a bite to eat at a restaurant at 5pm, out by 6pm to walk over to the illuminations, play around in the lights, head back home by 7pm to make only a slightly-later 8pm bedtime. We’ve only been doing one “area” every other night to keep from being out too late and tiring ourselves out too much. It’s nice to basically spend a week leisurely enjoying the illuminations together! She will not stop talking about them, it’s been the highlight of the season. She would walk through those musical portals all night if she could…
If you’re in town, check it out, especially if you have kids. It closes on 1/3! And of course, there are illuminations everywhere in Japan this time of year. There’s something wonderful about sparkly lights at night…