The Kobe Luminarie is an annual light installation held each December in the streets of central Kobe, originally as a memorial to the victims of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and a celebration of the city's recovery. Italian lighting designers create elaborate archways and tunnel structures from tens of thousands of illuminated bulbs, transforming the streets around the old foreign settlement into something from a fairy tale.
The installation draws enormous crowds — millions of visitors during the two-week period — and the queues can be long. The lights are at their most impressive in the evening, when they reflect off the wet streets after rain. The event has become one of Kobe's signature cultural events, and is now also held in other cities including Tokyo.