A back view. In the center of the photo you can see the overhanging canopy above the front door of our apartment. The large tree is a cherry tree which produces fruit yearly.
The view to the left of the entrance door, after the cherry tree. The "road" is not actually used except occasionally by the gardeners. To the right of the road you can see the vegetable and flower garden which is tended by the staff gardeners.
This is the "front" view of the apartment with our windows being the two far right ones. My bicycle parked in front gives an idea of scale. The building badly needs exterior cleaning from the pollution, but because it is a historical landmark building, the government must oversee the project, and the cost of special cleaning which preserves the original stone of the building is astonishing. Unfortunately the exterior walls will probably remain this way while we are living here.
Here you can see the central building of the observatory, which looks cleaner even though it is older because it was professionally cleaned several years ago. To the right, on the rounded wall, you can see our living room window. The small two-story building to the left of the statue is one of the two entrances to the observatory.