Tokyo Station Illumination event

While in Japan on my latest trip, Tokyo Station was running a special New Years Illumination event in December 2013 with some quite stunning illuminations of train wheels and tracks outside Tokyo Station. Despite the cold it was very busy each night and I had to go and see it!

Plenty of ushers were outside Tokyo Station to direct me and the crowds to the correct path to walk - turns out you have to walk around the block to get to the display, even though it is across the road from the station!

I guess it thins out the crowds around the display to a manageable amount. Once I got there, it was truly amazing. The train wheels and rails change the colour often and wheel type changes to various different Japanese train wheels types with suitable background music and train sounds.

An example of the train wheel type changes can be seen below:

It really was a remarkable sight, and walking around the display was busy, with the occasional smoke generated from the rails to keep things interesting!

I have never seen an illumination of train wheels and tracks like this before, and I have to say it was very impressive:

In the next few shots you can see Tokyo Station illuminated in the background, making a wonderful scene even more stunning to look at:

Here a shot of the smoke rising from the rails periodically, accompanied with steam train sounds and the background music which changes mood depending on the era of train wheels being showcased:

At the end of the rails, the rails curl up towards the sky:

As you can probably tell, I was very impressed with the detail that went into the illumination around Tokyo Station this year, especially the train wheels and rail section and best of all it was all free!