Yesterday was my mom’s birthday and we had a lot of fun. My mom woke up to a nice card and a clay cake that me, my dad, and Denise made the night before. We had muesli and mint tea for breakfast and then we took the subway to Tennoji Station. We went to Tennoji because Tennoji is right under Japan’s tallest building: Abeno Harukas. Although the tallest structure is the Tokyo SkyTree at 634m tall, the tallest building is Abeno Harukas at 300m. This photo shows me and Denise with a stuffed gorilla on the 16th floor observation deck of Abeno.  This is the view of Osaka from the 16th floor of Abeno, the 16th floor was free but you had to pay to go to the observation deck at the top. We decided to just go to the 16th floor for free. Unfortunately it was a little bit cloudy when we went so it was not as beautiful as it would have been if it was sunny but still a pretty nice view of the city.This is another photo of the view of Osaka, Osaka is a pretty big city, it has 2.691 million people and is 223km2. Next we went to a temple called Shitennoji. It was really pretty, there were a lot of cherry blossom trees there. We climbed up the 5-story pagoda in the temple complex. The temple grounds were nice to walk around.Here is me and Denise in front of the pagoda. We really liked it there.After Shitennoji we went to a temple called Isshin-ji. The main attractions in Isshin-ji are 8 big Buddha statues made from ashes of the dead, it took 200 000 people’s ashes to make the eight statues. This photo shows me and Denise in Isshin-ji.After Isshin-ji we walked to Tsutenkaku. Tsutenkaku is a famous tower built for the 1970 Osaka World Expo. At that time it was the tallest tower in Osaka but after being at Abeno it seemed pretty small. Right beside Tsutenkaku there was a Kushikatsu restaurant called Kushikatsu Daruma. Kushikatsu is fried skewers that have meat, fish, other seafood, and vegetables. It was really good!For my mom’s birthday we went to a big ferris wheel on the outskirts of town. It was so big, in fact it was 112.5 metres high and 100 metres in diameter.  The ferris wheel was so fun! You could line up for a glass floor instead of a regular floor. But the line was so long so we just went regular. It was also pretty scary being up so high.We saw a lot of cool sights at the top of the wheel. We practically saw all of Osaka from the top of the wheel, it was awesome!After the ferris wheel we got on the subway and went to Namba Station, from there we walked to an Okonomiyaki restaurant called Okura. Okonomiyaki is a savoury pancake with meat, seafood, and vegetables. They top it with a sauce that is kind of like teriyaki and they also make designs on top with mayonnaise. The Okonomiyaki on the left (below) has Tsutenkaku on it. The one on the right has Doraemon on it. Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon character. The Okonomiyaki was so so so good. It was such a fun day that we ended up going to bed at midnight. I hope mom liked it as much as I did. I hope that mom will have a great time being 41. Also, Happy Birthday Cleo!!!