Kobe Luminarie

I decided to take a little trip the other day to Kobe for a really interesting experience. Kobe is known for a variety of things: Its beautiful ocean, its beef, and most importantly as the site of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. This earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995, and although it hit the entire region, Kobe was hit the hardest. It took thousands of lives and did trillions of dollars in damage. When you visit Kobe today, you would not even think of this tragedy. It's revived into a bustling city, but the memory of it is still fresh in people's minds. So, I took a few trains with some friends for 600 yen, and we were there in and hour and half.

Every year since the Great Hanshin Earthquake, Kobe holds a festival called the 神戸ルミナリエ (Kobe Luminarie). Basically, lights are strung around the city for 2 weeks, and it's free for anyone to enter. Donation boxes throughout the area go toward not only providing the light show, but also go toward helping those in need in case of another earthquake.

You walk in through a line of lit up trees as you approach the picture below. I'll be honest. I've never seen anything like this before, and it's amazing.

Keep walking and you get to go underneath all those arches.

There are entire structures built out of lights.

Even though there were a lot of people, things moved pretty quickly. We were able to move around with no problems whatsoever, and it was amazing. We also had the best からあげ (karage) I've ever had as well as something new called ベービーカステラ (baby kasutera), which was essentially little dough balls. 

Anyway, all in all, it was a great trip, even though we were only there for a few hours. Next time, we'll go see the ocean and visit Chinatown. I already can't wait to go back. For now, here's a picture of Kobe at night.

Later!

Michelle