Last weekend, we visited Ritsurin Garden for its 2025 Autumn Evening Lighting event (令和７年栗林公園秋ライトアップ).
Ritsurin Garden is a strolling-style feudal garden built in the early Edo period, with a history that spans nearly 400 years. Set against the backdrop of Mt. Shiun, the garden features six ponds and thirteen artificial hills arranged with remarkable precision. It is the largest among Japan’s designated cultural landscape gardens and was recognized as a 特別名勝 (Special Place of Scenic Beauty) in 1953.
The garden hosts nighttime illumination events twice a year—once during the autumn foliage season and once in spring when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. This year marks the 25th autumn edition. The 2025 event runs for ten days, from November 21st to 30th, with extended opening hours until 9 p.m.
We went on Sunday, the 23rd. Since the following day was a substitute holiday for Labor Thanksgiving Day, it fell right in the middle of a three-day weekend, and the garden was extremely crowded.
Amid the crowd, I happened to overhear a heartwarming little exchange between a mother and her young daughter—one I couldn’t resist sharing here.
A girl of about six asked,
「ライトアップって何？ “What does light-up mean?”」
Her mother replied,
「ライトをアップすることよ “It means.. to up the lights”」
Technically correct, and completely unhelpful. It took all my effort not to burst out laughing. It makes sense grammatically, but it explains absolutely nothing, and that’s exactly why it’s funny.
This kind of humor is surprisingly difficult to explain to English speakers. In Japanese, nighttime illumination of buildings, gardens, or landscapes is commonly referred to as a "light-up." Ritsurin Garden’s event is literally called that in Japanese, 秋のライトアップ (Autumn Light-Up).
It’s one of those charming moments where the flavor of a language appears in the gap between literal meaning and actual usage.
