Lantern Floating Ceremony

Hiroshima’s annual Peace Memorial Day concludes with the poignant and beautiful August 6 floating ceremony on the Motoyasu River.

Every year on the evening of August 6 thousands of people make their way to banks of the Motoyasu River that runs below the Atomic Bomb Dome, bordering the Peace Memorial Museum. Here they set colorful paper lanterns bearing personal appeals for peace and to, once more, commemorate those who lost their lives in the bombing, many of whom took their final painful breaths before succumbing to their injuries in this stretch of water.

Everyone is welcome, and encouraged, to take part. There is a ¥1000 charge to cover costs, and all you have to do is line up for your paper, add your message, and then line up again (this part can take a while) to make your way down to the riverside where volunteers will help you wrap the paper around a wooden frame and light the lantern. Then, you can step down to the water and set it afloat with the 10,000 or so others.

You can buy the paper that will be wrapped around your lantern from early in the morning until 8:30pm. The lantern floating begins on the bank of the Motoyasu River the opposite the A-bomb Dome Memorial from 6pm after an 30-minute ceremony. Lanterns can be floated on the river until 9pm.