Nabana No Sato: Japan’s most extravagant light display

CNN  — 

When it comes to extravagant light displays, few would dispute that Japan’s the world leader.

Every winter, towns and cities across the country glow with impressive festivals featuring millions of colorful bulbs.

Best of all, these festivals keep going long after holiday cheer has passed, some carrying on well into spring.

Among the biggest and most impressive of them all is Nabana No Sato.

Hosted annually by the Nagashima hot spring resort in Mie prefecture, just outside of Nagoya, it features more than 8 million LED lights.

Yasuyo Otani, Nagashima Resort spokeswoman, tells CNN it takes four months and thousands of workers to set up the display, first building the foundations then the actual structure that holds the light bulbs.

This year’s festival is themed “the beauty of mother nature.”

“The main area is the biggest we’ve ever done,” says Otani.

Thirty meters in height and 155 meters wide, she says it takes up an area of 26,400 square meters.

“It contains five different views from five different countries across the world.”

These include a view of Monument Valley in the United States, Antarctica, Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia and views of tanada – Japanese rice terraces.

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A tunnel of fall leaves

The Nabana No Sato light festival is on until May 7.

As in past years, there’s also a stunning 100-meter tunnel of lights, which this year has been given hues of green, red and orange to emulate brilliant fall foliage.

“We try to show the beauty of autumn ‘momiji’ leaves,” says Otani.

“It shows traditional Japanese beauty and it’s hard to find anyone who dislikes momiji in Japan.”

Otani says they expect to receive 2 million visitors in 2017. Though most are Japanese, the numbers of foreigners continues to increase every year.

The resort is also home to one of Japan’s largest amusement parks and features a huge square filled with flowers.

Nabana no Sato, 270 Komae, Nagashima-chō, Kuwana-shi, Mie-ken; +81 (0)511-1144

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