Above: Kiyomizu-dera temple lit up for Hanatouro.

Sometimes, Japan is just magical.

Last month, I went to the Higashiyama district of Kyoto for its Hanatouro light-up. The Higashiyama Hanatouro is an annual light-up of several famous temples and winding streets in Higashiyama, a district in eastern Kyoto. It starts at dusk and ends at 9:30PM each night for one week in March.

I went to the Hanatouro on a Friday night, after work. It was a clear, cold night, with a new moon, and it wasn't as crowded as I had heard it can get.

Hanatouro means, literally, “flower and light road,” and it consists of lantern displays and elaborate, lit-up flower arrangements along the streets of Higashiyama, as well as the light-up of temples in the area.

There are about 2400 lanterns displayed (yes, here they either go big or go home), in seven different styles, ranging from wood to stone, all made from local Kyoto materials.

That night, I walked from Higashiyama train station through Jingu-michi and other winding streets towards Kiyomizu-dera, which is perched on a hillside and is the most famous of the temples in Higashiyama.

The walk to Kiyomizu-dera was fun and lively, with couples and families strolling together, and warmly lit shops still open and selling delicious-things-on-sticks. With the warm lighting, crisp night, and family atmosphere, it felt a bit like walking around Disneyland at night.

I loved this cheery group of cooks, who kept yelling, “Hot wine! Hot wine!” and ladling it out to customers.

By the time I reached Kiyomizu-dera, it was almost 9 o’clock, with not too many crowds. I had heard that the light-up of Kiyomizu-dera is not to be missed, and it’s true! The lit-up trees and pagodas were simply stunning.

Being there at night felt entirely different from my past daytime visit. Although there were a decent number of people there, there were also many hidden spots and shadowy places where I walked alone, and I was overwhelmed by the sense of history of the temple.

In the dark, alone, the usual busy-ness of one of the most popular tourist spots in Kyoto melts away, and it’s just you in a place with a 1200-year history.

Towards the end of my walk around Kiyomizu-dera, I came upon a tree that was lit-up with spotlights and had these gorgeous white flowers in bloom. They were huge flowers—practically the size of a pair of cupped hands—and looked exactly like the flowers from a book I used to read when I was a child.*

I have since found out from my reliable coworkers and Wikipedia that those flowers are called kobushi, and they are a species of magnolia that is native to Japan.

When I saw them, they reminded me so much of that story from my childhood, that my brain went, “A-Ha!” and I realized that seeing those beautiful flowers--which I had last seen in a picture book when I was about eight-years-old--blooming before my eyes is yet another reason I came here.

(*Note: The book was about a young squirrel whose mother always warns him not to eat the flowers of a certain tree, but the flowers captivate the little squirrel so much that he, of course, ends up eating some and gets very sick. Not that I'm accusing Kiyomizu-dera of growing poisonous flowers.)