Uruma City’s most famous and largest tourist location, Sea road.
Connecting the Katsuren Penninsula and Hennza Island it’s surrounded
by the ocean on both sides and totals 4.7km in length.
On sunny days it’s filled with people on their way to enjoy the ocean or just out for a leisure drive.
Very few know, however, that the symbolic Henza Sea Bridge
at the middle of this major attraction lights up at night.

Normally, the crimson bridge pillars and the cables connecting the road
and pillars show an image of a pheonix. The light designs or theme can change with the seasons however,
and on the day this photo was taken the colour pallete was changed to represent the Haarii season
(haari: a ritual race with fishing boats to pray for safe ocean journeys and plentiful fish).
The Yabuchi Bridge on the opposite shoreline is the perfect spot for viewing the bridge at night.
The lights of the reflected image glittering upon the ocean give the bridge an even more fantastic air,
and the city lights of Ishikawa shining in the foreground
adds a beautiful accompanyment to the night time scene.

It’s an opportunity to see a completely different Sea road than in the day time.

If you look at the bridge from up close,
the images have an even stronger impact. Depending
on the angle from which you’re looking, the bridge’s photo changes completely,
which is part of its attraction.

The person responsible for the light designs on the Henza Sea Bridge is internationaly
famous light designer Miki Matsushita.
It seems that in order to place the lights at their best advantage,
Ms. Matsushita had to do lots of research on bridge building for her designs.
Miki explains that she took the poetic idea of “a flying pheonix, skimming the waves,
travelling through the clouds” as the concept for her light art,
from which she created the image of a pheonix trying to fly.
The light show runs on relays of 20 minutes,
out of which the pheonix will only be dyed entirely read for three minutes.

“It’s a design that’s beautiful from no matter
where you look- whether you see a still picture as you look up during a walk,
a sequence of images as you’re driving along the road in your car,
or standing far away on the other shore bridge, looking at the entire thing.
The fourteen seasonal animated scenes that run throughout the year is a present from me
to both locals and visitors.
I would be honoured if you would come and see these beautiful lights
brighten the night sky of Uruma City” says Ms. Matsushita with a smile.
Taking Uruma City’s culture and natural surroundings into strong account,
she has made the perfect light show for the Sea road.
We hope you’ll visit and see this beautiful snight cenery for yourself soon.