#Ōsaka

The day started today with a visit to the Hōryūji Temple in Nara. It was founded in 607, making it one of the oldest temple complexes in Japan. The main gate, the main hall, and the five-storey pagoda are actually the oldest surviving wooden structures in the world.

After that, we took a detour to the sprawling Nara Park with its many temples and shrines. We’ve been there many times and actually wanted to use the visit to relax, but the sheer crowds of tourists sucked all the joy out of it. This is probably just a taste of Kyōto, which is particularly suffering from the influx of visitors due to the weak yen.

Instead, we went back to Ōsaka, where we visited the Umeda Sky Building.

By the way, the weather here still feels almost like late summer: sunny and over 20°C during the day.

During the dark season in Japan, you’ll find not just Christmas decorations, but also winter lights, known as Illuminations (イルミ). Every major city decorates its streets and squares with lavish lighting and light shows.

Here’s a collection of our best illumination photos that we took back in 2018.

Some of the illuminations start as early as November, and some go on until February. If you’re visiting Japan during autumn and winter, it’s definitely worth checking out these light spectacles. Most of them are in public areas and can be seen for free, but landscape gardens and temples do charge an entrance fee.

A quick run-through of the must-see Ōsaka programme. We visited the Keitakuen garden, where we encountered a bit of autumn foliage colour once again. In the neighbouring Shitenno-ji temple, we were able to view a pagoda from the inside. Afterwards, we went to the food and entertainment strip Dotonbori in the Namba district and finished off our sightseeing at Ōsaka Castle.

Just before sunset, we took a look at the Umeda skyline with the Sky Building from the roof of the main station. After that, we admired the first winter illumination of this trip. On Midosuji Street, the trees are decorated with thousands of colourful fairy lights. The festival of lights stretches for several kilometres down the street all the way to Namba.

We really liked Ōsaka. Tomorrow, unfortunately, we’re already off to the last stop of our trip in the capital, Tōkyō.

Today was another travel day, so there isn’t much to report. Arriving in Ōsaka, we visited our first Christmas market at the Umeda Sky Building. It imitates a German Christmas market down to the last detail. There are stalls with crêpes, pizza, mulled wine, beer, sausages and gift items. There’s a Christmas tree, a nativity scene, a carousel. They even thought of the weather, as it was raining just like back home. 😄

For dessert, we grabbed a cheesecake from Uncle Rikurō, a speciality in Ōsaka. The cakes are freshly baked right in front of the customers’ eyes.