Photo: studio IRONY · CC BY 3.0
Every 17 January since 1996, Kobe holds its dawn memorial for the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in Higashi Yuenchi park, beside City Hall. Around 6,000 bamboo and paper lanterns are lit from 5:00, and the city falls silent at 5:46, the minute the quake struck in 1995.
Why it's unique
This is a civic ritual particular to Kobe: the anniversary of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake marked at the exact minute it struck, in the park by City Hall, every year since 1996. Other Japanese disaster anniversaries exist, so the claim is the Kobe vigil itself, not the form.
What you can do here is take part rather than watch. Visitors are welcome to light a candle and set it in one of the lanterns, then stand with residents through the silence at 5:46 as the sky starts to lighten.
Before you go
Visitors are welcome to light a candle and set it in a lantern from about 4:00, and that is the moment to arrive, not 5:40, when the crowd is already packed in.
Bring warm layers: it is the coldest hour of the coldest month, and you will be standing for over an hour.
