Lanterns

Sorry for the delay, this has been a rather hectic week.  Tuesday we moved in to our new apartment (more on that later this weekend once I actually unpack), Wednesday we had the delivery of all of our stuff from Boise that we shipped and then we went to Hiroshima for the lanterns and yesterday and today I worked full days at my volunteer job.  Trying to play catch up!

Every year on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima (August 6th) people come to the river by the Peace Park and write messages on floating lanterns and float them down the river.  It's is extremely beautiful.  Here are a few pictures of it.

There were two types of lanterns, paper ones and these hard sided ones.  Either way you could write or draw on them.  These ones are the hard sided ones and were done by kids.

Hard sided lanterns that were decorated by children waiting to go in to the river.

Boats in the middle of the river that were launching the lanterns.  You can also see a small fraction of the people who came out to watch.  Both sides of the river and the bridges were teeming with people.

The lanterns on the river before it got dark.  They start at 6 and supposedly stop at 9 but I'm guessing the go until they run out of lanterns.

We walked up stream a little and this is taken looking down stream at the A-bomb Dome and Peace Park.

This is looking up stream as the sun was getting low and it was getting dark.

Paper lanterns from above when on a bridge over the river.

Lanterns at full dark,