failed illumination expedition : November 4 2025

we just came back from a hike yesterday. and surprisingly, it wasn't that hard. we did took around 4 hours of walk and an hour more for lunch. it also had a good section of rocky faces which sounds good to me. i better talk about that in another entry, @wittyzell had a really great time scaling those rocks.

but today, housemate js, who also hiked yesterday, invited me for a walk. that is surprising. she does not want to go to the gym, and here legs were fine so she wanted to have a nightwalk instead. and so we decided to visit an illumination spot in roppongi.

cruising ueno

we had quite a lot of road options but all will pass through ueno. so might as well pass through the park where a lot of greenery, or any shade of it, exists. the park had no scheduled activity that night.

passing through the busy commercial area, i heard faint drum beats. and that grow louder as we walked further until we finally saw the source. i had no idea what it was for but he was beating the taiko drum.

the kanda lights

kanda area is situated near the river; thus, lots of bridges. it is also a very commercial area, and very well decorated. like moths to a light, we walked closer to these lights.

and that led to more lights. this area could never be more bright and whimsical. for some reason, i just found the urge to sing the japanese version of "part of your world" as we were walking around this area. "part of your world" was the song from that mermaid movie, but this area had wings and not tails. so i was weirded out myself.

oh, and we saw this person down the river. i really do not know what he was doing down there.

nijubashimae station (二重橋前駅)

we reached the imperial palace area and my urine bladder was about to burst. it was very difficult finding a toilet, the nearest one was out of order. so we got down the subway station, the toilet was inside the station gate where you need to tap before getting in. we walked underground for quite sometime until we reached the nijubashimae station where we got the station stamp. the stamp was of the 06 series, of which only one set was ever made making it very rare and ran from 1993 to 2015.

as i was very focused on finding a toilet, i forgot to take a picture of the station. sad. but we eventually found one after a fairly long walk.

hibiya area

the tokyo international film festival stage greeted us once we entered the center of the commercial complex. it was around 10 pm when we arrived, the place was deserted. i wonder if any famous people came for the festival.

i love films. i love non-commercial films more. but it is hard to filter the good from the bad films. i love film festivals for curating the films for me. but then, the festival ends tomorrow which is just unfortunate.

anyways, we also found this well decorated and well lit christmas tree in one corner.

by this time we decided to ditch the illumination expedition to roppongi, it was just too far and it was getting late. it will take another hour to reach the spot, so we chose to postpone the expedition instead.

imperial palace perimeter

after the change of plans, we decided to head to another station for the stamps. this time, we walked around the perimeter of the imperial palace. this area was once the location of the great edo palace; thus, it was fully moated. ginkgos and willows surround the moats now.

there was also an area with these pine trees which looked like giant bonsais because of their shapes. now, this place is used as jogging tracks evidenced by the many joggers who passed by.

takebashi station (竹橋駅), the last stop

we finally reached the goal, our feet would thank us for this. as it was another subway train, the stamp design was of train series. this time, it featured the series 05. this one was made and operated since 1988 and the newer iterations of this series are still in use till this day.