Kobe Luminarie (神戸ルミナリエ) is a light festival held in Kobe, Japan, every December since 1995 to commemorate the Great Hanshin earthquake of that year. The lights were donated by the Italian Government and the installation itself is produced by Valerio Festi and Hirokazu Imaoka. Over 200,000 individually hand painted lights are lit each year with electricity generated from biomass in order to stay environmentally friendly.
Manhole cover commemorating the KobeLuminarie
Kobe is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in the Kansai region, which makes up the southern side of the main island of Honshū, on the north shore of Osaka Bay. It is part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kyoto. The Kobe city centre is located about 35 km (22 mi) west of Osaka and 70 km (43 mi) southwest of Kyoto.
Image: Kobe Port Tower and Maritime Museum, November 2016
Image: The old settlement hall of no 15 01 1920
Image: Hyogo prefectural museum of art 08s 3200
Image: Chang'an gate (Nankinmachi, Kobe)