Summer in Japan always means lights; whether it’s amazing fireworks shows or lanterns floating on a river. This weekend, the park around Osaka castle was lit up with thousands of small lanterns. You could buy your own lantern and place it in beautiful patterns on the fields around the castle. There was live music and food stalls, people picknicking under the stars!

And a lasershow too!

During the day it’s now incredibly hot and it’s almost impossible to walk in the sun during the day without fainting :p

The very hot weather also brings very heavy thunderstorms, sometimes lasting for hours. Ward and I were taking a stroll in beautiful Minoo,  a nature park north of Osaka, when suddelny a huge thunderstorm occurred! Luckily we could shelter in the bug museum :)

Afterwards we had a nice cup of coffee in a very old Japanese teahouse. The   coffeefoam had the image of a “teru bozu”, which is a Japanese doll which brings good weather. And it did, the sun came out ^^