Santa Tokyo Guide – the Ultimate Santa Guide for the Greater Tokyo area. Santa Visits in Japan generally start from the end of November. Occasionally you can find a couple of places that Santa visits as early as October, a few more in early November, but the main Santa greetingRead More →
Santa House, Santa Hills, Tochigi – December 2019 For the last few years I have tried unsuccessfully to book a coveted spot in the Santa House in Santa Hills, Tochigi Prefecture. I have been determined, since discovering it while researching Santastic Tochigi in 2015, to stay in the Santa HouseRead More →
Metsa Christmas Metsa Village is the ‘free’ part of the Moominvalley theme park in Hanno, Saitama. Each year they have a Christmas market. We visited the Metsa Village Christmas market and Christmas town on the opening day of the event, November 1st (2019). It was a little too early toRead More →
Cocoon City Christmas 2020 – Cocoon City is just one part of Saitama Shintoshin. The whole area of Shintoshin is the most Christmassy location I have found in Saitama prefecture . Between the illumination, the markets, the concerts, candle night, crafts and Santa visits, it really is one of theRead More →
Finland No Mori in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture where you can meet the real Santa all year round. You can also hang out in a Hammock cafe, get ice-cream in a Moomin mug and / or pick up some delicious cheese too! In the big search for Santa in 2015, oneRead More →
Santastic Tochigi – In my search for Santa, one prefecture that stood out for having a good selection of Santa events and attractions was TOCHIGI. So my family of six took to the road to do a bit of reconnaissance. Thanks to the completion of a new stretches of highway, Tochigi is veryRead More →
Shinrin Park Night Illumination – Every year, Shinrin park in Namegawa Town, Saitama, offer night illumination in the central gate area of the park. They are one of the first to start their night illumination. They have three different displays: Halloween illumination – Halloween Night in the Forest, Autumn LeafRead More →
The very first night illumination I went to in Saitama, at least ten years ago, was at the Keyaki Hiroba in Saitama Shintoshin. At the time it was one of only a handful of places that had a large scale night illumination display in Saitama. I had moved from MitoRead More →