Japanese Lights x 100-step Staircase: Enchanting Fairy Tales

Traditional Japanese art combine with vibrant illuminations to transport you to a wondrous world of fairy story and myth, in this must-see event at Meguro’s Hotel Gajoen Tokyo. Multiple rooms of this venue’s Hyakudan Kaidan (‘The Hundred Stairs’, a designated tangible cultural property) have been transformed into a unique and enchanting multi-sensory installation, with each one based upon a compelling legend. This highly photogenic event, which runs through to late September, has already wowed over 20,000 visitors.

As you ascend the lantern-lit staircase of the Hyakudan Kaidan, each of the venue’s seven floors reveals such marvels as an installation based upon the story of Toryumon, a carp who is transformed into a fearsome dragon after leaping up a waterfall. Ink paintings, ikebana flower arrangements and paper crafts combine with vivid lighting effects to place you within a world where carp swim in the air, a waterfall gushes, and the carp-turned-dragon emerges from the rough waves of the sea.