Twelve Hours Prior

On This Day In History
1979: The Shah of Iran flees

Quote Of The Day
"Thank God we in Iran have neither the desire nor the need to suffer from democracy."
(Mohammed Reza Pahlavi)

I stayed late after school today to meet with the man who is going to speak about his experience of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake at the Year Four memorial assembly. It will be a particularly poignant assembly this year because not only is it thirty years since the earthquake struck, pure chance has caused us to hold the assembly on the actual date the of the earthquake. I am really looking forward to it. After today's rehearsal, I am sure it will be beautiful.

After leaving work I headed down to Higashi Yuenchi Park to see the preparations for tomorrow morning's memorial service. By chance, a small prayer service was held at 17:47, exactly twelve hours prior to the earthquake, so I took part in that.

I will post some more of the photographs I took this evening tomorrow and, if I am lucky, some photos of the emperor and empress who will be attending the ceremony and touring Kobe tomorrow.

Miserere Mei (This is the music that the will accompany the children out of the hall tomorrow after the memorial assembly.)