Ueno Park and Zoo

In late June, Nikki and I went to the Ueno district, which is about a 20-minute train ride North from the center of Tokyo – where we were staying at the time. Ueno was one of the working-class areas of Tokyo and is famous for its enormous park, national museums, zoo, and many streets lined with small shops.

We popped in and out of a few places, bought some snacks from street vendors, and then walked through the main park, where we had our first sight of homelessness in Japan. After making our way past several gardens and street performers, we found a little league baseball game that we watched for a bit before heading to the zoo; we decided we’d come back for the museums on a rainy day.I’ve never been a big fan of zoos so the novelty of seeing some animals for the first time wore off quickly. Anyway, you name it, the zoo had it…the Ueno Zoo website has a list if you’re curious. Here are a few things we saw...