Tokyo German Village Winter Illumination

In Sodegaura, Chiba, there is a village that calls itself German. At Tokyo German Village the winter illumination starts on October 31 and does not end until April 4 — from mid-autumn clear through to cherry-blossom time, the longest winter in the region. The lights come on at sunset and go out at eight, no later. The village is thirty-five minutes by bus from Sodegaura Station, and its hills are broad enough that the light reads as landscape rather than decoration. It wakes with the dark and sleeps before the night gets old. A farming village's hours, kept by electricity.