Ritsurin Gardens Light Up in Takamatsu

The Ritsurin Gardens in Takamatsu, Kagawa is one of the best looking gardens in Japan. Usually you visit it during the day, but during November, for less than two weeks, the gardens are open at night.

Selected trees, plants, water features, buildings and statues are lit up with a mixture of white and coloured lights.

Unlike during the day when the whole of Ritsurin Park is open, only certain routes around are available to walk along during the light up. This is partly for safety reasons, and also partly because it would be too complicated to light up the whole park for such a short time.

The light up proved very popular, with hundreds of locals visiting to take photos using their expensive cameras and tripods.

I made do with my cheap compact held in my hand, but the results aren’t too bad!

The Koi fish were up and as ever hoped to get food from the visitors.

It is a bit like being at an art gallery where you move from one piece to the next rather than the usual Ritsurin Gardens where you can look at everything.

Here is the Ritsurin Gardens waterfall. It is an artificial waterfall and at one time servants had to carry water up to make it work. These days a water pump is used.

This shot is of the Ritsurin tea room reflected in the lake. The lighting provided for some great ‘reflected in the water’ photo opportunities.

That isn’t the moon by the way, it is a light behind the tree.

In the dark even a simple piece of tree bark became very interesting to look at.

Many of the stepping stones across the ponds were off limits due to the dark, but this set of stones was well lit up.

And finally here is the poster of the 2010 Ritsurin Park light up.

If you want to see what Ritsurin Park looks like during the day see my other Ritsurin Park photos.