It’s been a month since I moved to Osaka, time flies! So many things happened, I moved to my own apartment, started a new job and became an aunt!

In the meantime summer kicked in, and that means temperatures of above 35 degrees during the day (and it does not cool down at night). Almost too hot to go outside but still some energy left to do some sightseeing in Japan.

I live almost next door to one of the most popular places in Japan: Osaka Castle. Located in the middle of a huge park, this castle was built in 1597. Damaged and destroyed through the ages, the current castle is a reconstruction that was finished in 1997. The building is a really impressive sight to see, especially since it’s located in the middle of the concrete jungle of Osaka.

Beautiful isn’t it??

Ward is overlooking the view from the park that lies high above the rest of the city:

We also visited the Botanical Gardens of Osaka, the biggest greenhouse in Japan. It was built during the World Expo 1990.

The funniest part of the Expo Park was the area with all the tiny gardens dedicated to different countries (even “countries”  like Bavaria and Hamburg :p). But since the park was clearly not maintained since 1990, everything was overgrown and broken :-p Here was the Dutch garden:

Which was a weird sluice with a sunken boat haha!

The windmill was splendid though:

A little bit of home in far away Osaka!