sheep

Having heard so many glowing reports I decided to go to the 'illuminarie' event in Sannomiya with a friend. I later found out it's been going every year since the Hanshin earthquake in an attempt to attract business to the once ruined city, and bring people it certainly does. In the middle Saturday of December 600,000 people flocked to see the lights and so I was quite excited about the prospect of seeing such a spectacle on my birthday.

Having travelled the hour and a half from south Osaka to Kobe we started meandering down toward the lights - chilly but with the prospect of being excited, we were happy enough. Soon, however, we couldn't walk a certain way, then we couldn't go another way and all of a sudden we were herded, as if in a farm or a riot situation, through hairpins, by the uniformed men. That Japan is a nation of uniform lovers it is no secret but on occaisions like this you can really do without them, in their overdressed but almost redundant capacity. Everywhere, they guided us along an already penned in route which we would have had to jump over to escape. I was overcome with frustration after half an hour as we had to stand and wait and then move a bit then stand then move a bit as if on a wonky travelator. The romantic nature of the event had been lost before it even started.

Eventually we got to the lights, heralded by almost everyone stopping and taking a picture with their mobile, digital or movie camera. The initial street of lights was nice enough and then we got to the bullring of, well, more coloured bulbs. It kind of reminded me of going to the shows when I was a kid but without the waltzers or dodgems - Saltcoats or Millport is more exciting than this. Then we realised that was it. We could listen to the choral music, which did try to create an atmosphere, but that, essentially, was it. We took a bunch of photos of people taking photos and the hundreds of guy ropes which were used to fasten the verticals made a nice image but it was quite disappointing.

What I couldn't get over was how good everyone had said it was. Had they seen what we had? Had they been less expectant? Was I being unfair? Think about the earthquake! Come on - if you manage to get the marketing this good, you should pull out the fucking stops - put on more than a few flimbsy lights and some over-priced takoyaki stalls. A German market here would have been great for Christmas, as it seems that this does want to be a little slice of that European Christmas that people don't understand.

In any case the company was good and we headed off for some tasty gyoza, dim sum and fried rice at a cold, if open, restaurant (the whole of China town not apparently wanting to take the custom of visitors and closing down just as people have finished looking at the lights). The train ride back seemed to take double the time but my birthday present was waiting at the end of it all!