38^th Annual Midwifery Summit September 01-02, 2020 Osaka, Japan

OSAKA (about 330 miles southwest of Tokyo) is the second largest city in Japan and the 13th largest city in the world, with a population of about 10.5 million people. Situated on a sheltered bay, it is also the commercial, shipping and industrial center of western Japan, the second major gateway to Japan after Tokyo and the transportation and communication hub of the Kansai region, with a convenient connections to Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe, the Inland Sea area, and Shikoku, which are all nearby. Even though Osaka is flat as flat can be its name means “big hill. “Foreign guide books usually do not have much nice to say about Osaka. One said its biggest claims to fame were the yakuza and pachinko. Another called the “Elephant Man” of Japan---ugly but wanting desperately to be loved.

Many say it is the heart of Japan. The people may be a little crude, inconsiderate and pushy at times, yes, but they are also more warm, open and generous. Many of Japan's funniest comedians are from Osaka. Osaka isn't a very attractive place. Sometimes it seems like an endless concrete jungle of crowded streets and sidewalks, train lines, factories, office buildings, pre-fab homes and apartments squeezed much too close together. There isn't all that much to see either. The main tourist sites include a concrete castle, an ultra-modern aquarium with a whale shark and the first Universal Studio to open up outside the United States.