Orb-Morgenroete-Inc: Two weeks in Japan (part 1)

It's been quite a while since my last post. So here's a new post about my last vacation to the land of the ris

ing sun and the origin of Otaku....Japan. Having been in Hong Kong earlier this year (May), I thought it would be a nice extension to explore the Farther East. We started the journey with a flight from Amsterdam to Osaka in the Kansai Region. Many people will think about Tokyo first, but the Kansai Region is also interesting, because of the well-known cities as Kobe (Kobe-beef and unfortunately also the 1995 earthquake) and the former capital of Japan, Kyoto, which has far more history than

the nowadays Tokyo metropolis. The first flight towards Osaka Kansai International Airport was a comfortable one with a KLM Boeing 777-200ER. Although having flown for many times in widebodies like 747-400, it was actually my first flight in a triple seven.
We were staying at a hotel in Nipponbashi nearby the busy district Namba. We discovered that it was

located in the middle of Den Den Town, a shopping area for electronic equipment, games, anime and a heaven for Otaku which is comparable with Akihabara in Tokyo.
Our first activity was visiting the Tsutenkaku tower in Naniwa ward. It gives a great view on the southern (minami) section of Osaka. It wouldn't be the last tower we are going to visit.
We also visited

the Osaka Zoo for the time being till we could check in at 15:00 later that day.
The next day we went to the famous Osaka Castle. It provides a great view.
Unfortunately the world famous Himeji Castle, one of the few original surviving castles in Japan from the 17th century, was under renovation at this

time which will last till 2015! The southern districts, known as Minami has the Shitennoji-temple. The narrow streets has the well-known electricity- and telecommunicationpoles and cables. Well, that's for now. More reports are comin' up soon!