Sunday in Ueno Park

This picture was taken from just outside the front door to our apartment, which is on the third floor. The boys are waiting for me in the courtyard, just inside the sliding glass doors that block off the small vestibule. It's Sunday afternoon and we are headed to Ueno Park, where there is a zoo.

Here you can see our building in the background, the white one behind the little red delivery truck. We cut through Ebisu Prime Square plaza on our way to the train station.

There are billboards all over town advertising Nintendo's Wii Fit.
In this one, a lady demonstrates how to ski.

This whale outside the National Museum of Nature and Science
reminds us of another museum we know...

The line is way too long for the museum's "Great Robot Exhibition" featuring karakuri (traditional mechanical dolls), more advanced walking robots and futuristic robots as depicted in manga (comics). We'll have to make it back there before the show closes.

"Hey, those kids are younger than me and they have cell phones!
When am I going to get one??"

We stroll through an open-air market where merchants are selling teapots, teacups, plates, bowls, chopsticks and sake. D convinces his Dad to buy him a wooden spoon and he is psyched.

We almost make it to the zoo gates when the boys are distracted by a giant cat:

They beg us for a chance to take a spin inside Pikachu:

"Got any 100 yen coins?"



Seems it can't get any better than this...

Oh, but it can! This ride is deceptively kiddie-like. It runs on a short flat oval track, but really whips around the turns.

The concession stand sells gelato, crepes, caramel popcorn and beer!
Tallboys are 350 yen and come with a bag of mixed nuts.

By the time we are ready to leave this little amusement park, it is starting to get dark and the zoo is about to close....

We decide to save the zoo for another day and instead visit the nearby Toshogu shrine, built in 1627 to honor Ieyasu Tokugawa , founder of the Edo shogunate, which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867. Something like 200 stone lanterns decorate the entrance.

C studies wishes left by shrine visitors:


Cool pagoda, below. (Backstory lifted from a Aug. 2007 article in the Japan Times: "After Ieyasu Tokugawa moved Japan's political capital from Kyoto to Edo in 1603, in 1625 his successor, Hidetada, decided to build Kaneiji, a temple meant to protect the city's northeast corner, the one Buddhists believe most vulnerable to evil spirits. An impressive pagoda from the former, vast temple complex survives today in the zoo, near the elephant enclosure.")

D snapped this shot of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki flame, kept lit to commemorate the A-bomb tragedies and as a call for world peace:

On the train ride home D admires his fellow passenger's bling and soft furry coat.

We grab a quick dinner at one of those places where you feed money into a machine, press a button, collect a ticket and hand it over to the cook, who then passes the food over the counter to you on a tray. The order machine is all in kanji, so we point to plastic samples in the display case outside and then the cook shows us which buttons to press. Next time we'll remember: No. 32 is fried pork cutlet over cabbage with a bowl of soba noodles in broth, and No. 34 is katsu and egg over rice with a side of soba. Just two "sets" fed our whole family for $13, a record!