Show Me Japan: 1.17.1995

The 24th floor of Kobe City Hall is a great place to get a bird's eye view of the entire city center, especially in the evening. Kobe City Hall is located on Flower Road, just south of JR Sannomiya Station and the observation floor is free to visit. Next to Kobe City Hall is Higashi Yuenchi Park, which features a permanent earthquake memorial monument dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. This photograph was taken on January 17, 2011, which marked the 16th anniversary of the quake, and the date is actually made of thousands of candles.

Photograph is my entry for this weeks Show-Me-Japan (Vol.1 Issue 10).

Lighting Candles

Sannomiya earthquake memorial 1.17.2011.

Sannomiya 1.17.95 Memorial

Perhaps the largest of the earthquake memorials in Kobe is located in Sannomiya. Candles are placed in cut bamboo segments and organized to form a large 1.17.1995.

Nagata 1.17.95 Memorial

Monday, January 17, 2011, marks the 16th year since the 1995 earthquake that devastated Kobe. The quake struck at 5:46am and lasted for approximately 20 seconds, and when it was done Kobe was left in ruins and many lost their lives. Bells are sounded just before 5:46, issuing silence over the many earthquake memorial gathering spots throughout Kobe. Candles are set in honor of the lives lost and hardships some still face since that day 16 years ago.

Nagata, was one of the areas hardest hit by the quake and this is one of the memorials held in the area. The atmosphere of the events vary, some are somber and others more celebratory; some play music and sing songs, while others share stories or stand in silence. In the dark, windy, and bitter cold morning I am reminded how grand my humble but warm apartment - with its running water, electricity, and shelter - really is, and how difficult the uprooted lives of those who survived must have been.

Merry Umbrella Project

This is a small selection of 100 umbrellas printed with children's faces from around the world, from a public art project dubbed Merry Umbrella, at the earthquake memorial at Meriken park in Kobe. Larger projects than this one were held in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa in hopes of spreading messages of peace. The project is the work of Koji Mizutani, who also took the pictures of the children featured on the umbrellas from Mianyang, China, in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, as well as in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, after the 2004 Sumatra earthquake, and in Kobe in the aftermath of the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake.

Goshiki-zuka Kofun 五色塚古墳

The Goshiki-zuka Kofun, or barrow cemetery, is a key-hole shaped tumulus (mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves). This 18 meter high tumulus sits in Tarumi, on a hill in the middle of a residential neighborhood overlooking Awaji island across the channel. The key hole shape can really only be appreciated from a birds eye view of the tumulus, however, you can get some idea of its shape from the top (which you can climb to via a stone walkway). The tumulus dates from the late 4th or early 5th century and is 194-meters long. Quite an impressive site, made more impressive by its suburban surroundings and the many school children and residents that pass around it unbiased; as to them it is just the normal backdrop of an everyday commute.

Maritime Memorial Detail

Detail inside the small maritime memorial in Kōbe.

Maritime Memorial

Small maritime memorial in Kōbe.

Yanaka Cemetery 谷中霊園

I enjoy cemeteries, not as a morbid fascination, but for their silence, stillness, history and beauty. Humankind has lavished the dead with ornate structures and beautiful art, for instance the necropolis at the foot of Edinburgh castle in Scotland is an exceptional cemetery with lavish headstones some 30 feet tall and all excellent examples of dark and brooding baroque architecture. Yanaka Cemetery, a huge cemetery located north of Ueno in Tōkyō, is something else entirely. It is a gorgeous angular, organized, clean-lined garden populated with exquisite monuments which are, with rare exception, never more than 5 or 6 feet tall. Awe-inspiring not for their size and elaborateness, but for there tasteful simplicity and elegance. The cemetery is famous for its beautiful cherry blossoms that in April shade and blanket its 100 thousand square meters and 7 thousand graves. The cemetery has its own police station and a section dedicated to the Tokugawa clan, family of the 15 Tokugawa shoguns of Japan including the last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, also known as Keiki. It’s also home to many famous Japanese luminaries, including the painter Yokoyama Taikan and the famous writer Ichiyo Higuchi (pictured on the 5000 yen note).

KOBE鉄人PROJECT

TETSUJIN 28-GO (dubbed Gigantor in the states) a popular robot comic and TV animation created by Kobe native Mitsuteru Yokoyama recently received a memorial 1:1 Scale 59-foot-tall statue in Wakamatsu Park. The Kobe Tetsujin Project's statue is intended as a symbol of the city's continuing revival after the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and is located in Nagata Ward, the city's hardest hit neighborhood. For this photo I used a pre-set picture mode that added a classic B&W film grain to the image fully zoomed in at F2.8 for a shallow depth of field and exposed without a tripod so I also got some blur from camera shake.

Earthquake Memorial Service

The Hanshin earthquake occurred in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture on January 17, 1995. 2010 marks the 15th anniversary and many services and activities were scheduled throughout the city including this candlelight vigil.

One of the permanent features of the earthquake memorial site is a water feature that can be seen from

both above and below. For the memorial service each visitor was given the opportunity to place the head of a white carnation into the fountain transforming the celling of the underground segment into a eerie and beautiful living bouquet.