Fujisan Farewell Lights Up The Year’s End

Fortune gave me a delightful end to 2025 with an unexpected night flight to Enoshima to see the Jewel of Shonan illumination event. We still made it home in time to farewell the year with the traditional Red and White Year-end Song Festival…at least partway, as I couldn’t be bothered and went to bed.

Having been incapacitated for months due to a broken leg, I wasn’t expecting to head out, especially I only stopped using crutches on Dec. 26, gave short shrift to a cane the following day and then limped around under my own steam thereafter. But Mrs. Kangaeroo, who delights in the usually spectacular winter illumination events around Tokyo at the end of the year, was keen to get out and I wanted to bring her some, well, light. This was particularly so as she’d spent three quarters of the year looking after the infirm; both myself with the broken leg that followed on from months of treatment for osteomyelitis and arthritis, as well as our dinosaur, who has required hospitalization and weekly treatment since falling ill in April.

With public transportation services drastically curtailed on New Year’s Eve, we walked everywhere, which was a bit of a strain, but it was a lovely night and it allowed us more time to take in the sights. We left home in the late afternoon, arrived just in time to see the year’s final light descend behind Mount Fuji and then scaled the heights to the Enoshima Sea Candle to catch the light show.

There were no crowds, it was a dazzling display and the weather was sublime given that we were outside in the middle of winter. I was also elated at walking, albeit without the fluid motion I would have hoped for, but the event added a lovely and unforeseen pleasant full stop to what had been a pretty decent year.