Hello! I hope you had a good week. I was browsing my photo’s folder and I realised I haven’t posted a lot of things from one year ago (OTL why I’m so slow). Last year I did not really went to see a lot of winter illumination because.. I think I’m getting bored of it, because it always shows the same things from the previous year. However tho, I went to 2 places at outskirt Tokyo and I think it was quite big and pretty that some of the travel blogs named them as one of the best illumination spots. So without further ado, I’ll share the place information.
First stop: Sagamihara Resort Pleasure Forest
This resort located at Kanagawa, it was around 1.5-2 hours from Tokyo, depends on which area you stay. The amusement park is quite old, but it’s still ok. To go here, you need to take the train to Sagamiko station and from there, you can take a bus to Pleasure Forrest.
The admission fee is 1700 for whole day. During the illumination season, they also have tickets for night admission only (from 4 or 5PM). Some attraction inside will cost you additional fee, but I won’t talk about it.
I think last year theme was about London and Paddington bear, so you can see a lot of Paddington decoration inside. The park is divided to 2 park, the one down the hill and one on top of the hill. You need to pay the cable car ride to go up to the hill.
There’s a Ferris Wheel on top of the mountain and that is the famous spot, I guess. We wait for 1 hour just to ride the Ferris Wheel, but the view is really nice.
At the downhill side, there is a spacious area which is decorated in two themes. The sea and the zoo.
The main show in this illumination is the swan fountain, where they have a music show with fountain and lights.
This park provides you a route that you can follow to see the entire illumination. I suggest you to go follow the route so you don’t bump with other visitors. You can find the swan fountain at the end of the route.
Second Stop: Tokyo Doitsumura
Tokyo Doitsumura literally means Dutch Village, although it does not really looks like a dutch village, but, I guess they’re trying (they sold imported goods from the Netherland).
It’s located at Chiba, you’ll need to take the train from Sodegaura, and take the bus from Sodegaura to Doitsumura. Me and my coworkers drove there, so I don’t really know about the train and bus fares. The admission fares is 800yen, plus additional 1000 if you go by car.
Just like Sagamiko, there’re several attraction inside the park that needs additional fares. There’re a mini golf field, dog park, and camping area. The place itself is quite old, so some facilities might be old too, be careful. I tried one of the hammock in the camping area and suddenly it torn into two.. -.-aa
I came quite early before the illumination, so I went to the dog park (additional 700yen) and went to have some lunch.
The illumination is quite unique. A “musical performance” started the illumination program.
So in the roof of the house, there are the 2 mascots of Doitsumura and they lipsync-ed to the music. After that, there’s a gate that showing the countdown till the starting time of the illumination.
Although the illumination is smaller than the one in Sagamihara, this one is better in my opinion.
There’s no route if I’m not mistaken, so feel free to explore the park. However, the park is full of people at weekend night.
And that’s the places I’d like to introduce this time. Tl;dr, the summary is..
pro:
- It’s good option if you want to look for other places rather than staying in the city.
- those places are probably famous for those events. If you’re looking for attraction, I’d suggest you just go to Disney or Universal Studio.
cons:
- far. Kanagawa and Chiba are around 1-2 hours distance from Tokyo, depends on which area you stay. Transport might be quite expensive.
- They’re quite old (facilities, attraction)
- The places are full of people during weekend night (especially during the illumination season).
So, before you go there, consider about your schedule and budget too.
And that’s all for this post. I’ll try to write the next post as soon as I can. Have a good day everyone, and as always, your comments are always loved <3