Ruminaria

Ruminaria is an event in Kobe where you look at Christmas lights (iruminashion in Japanese). They were originally put up to honor the people who died in the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. So people would probably be offended that I just said they were Christmas lights because they were taken down a week before Christmas, I think. It's grown in popularity and seems to be a big economic draw for the town as it has been rebuilt. Although I have no statistics on this.

There were tons of people there! It was more crowded than Target the day after Thanksgiving. Calm and gentle people turned into jerks in the big crowd. Pushing and shoving were commonplace. I was really shocked!

After walking through this street with a beautiful arch of lighs we came upon the sight of this ever so giant pavilion of lights. It was so gorgeous. We were all in awe of it!