The Lantern Festival is held on the 15th and final day of the Chinese Spring Festival and will take place in Yokohama’s Chukagai Chinatown at the Ma Zhu Miao, Shrine to the Goddess of the Sea, known as Masobyo in Japanese.

There will be a display of paper lanterns on which people’s hopes and dreams for the year ahead will be written and performances of lion dances.

The Lantern Festival has a variety of origin myths and a variety of customs depending on where it is held – in Hong Kong, apparently, it has been commercialised as something like Valentine’s day – but wherever it is, it marks the end of the Spring Festival. For more about the Hong Kong Festival, see our event post on the Spring Lantern Festival on our sister site Hong Kong Cheapo.

Ma Zhu Miao is located in Chinatown’s Yamshita-cho Park.