Asia trip Day 28 - 2nd day in Tokyo

Saturday March 25

It was as the forecast had said: rain the whole day. For many days everybody had talked about "Sakura", the Japanese cherry blossom. When is the festival? Are we too early? Are we too late? James and I  always go with the motto "it is what it is". One can not be disappointed that way.

Yesterday the weather wasn't that bad in the morning but for whatever reason we were not let into the gardens of the Imperial Palace so I googled later to find out more about it. "Dr Google" did not disappoint and recommended several other parks. We decided on Ueno Park. Long opening times and free admission.  We think now that a visit to this park would be worth it at any time. There is so much to see here. We were glad we came no matter what.

We had our 48-hour train passes and they were great. We figured out that we needed the orange Ginza Line. The train was very full. Mask time! We got out two stations too early but not a problem. The next train was just a few minutes later, We are getting the hang of it.

I always like to take a photo of where we started if this is where we want to get back to at the end.

We decided to just meander and not worry about it. 

The banner over the road says:

Ueno Onshi Park 150th Anniversary Follow the rules to enjoy cherry blossoms

There were lots of vendors. Mainly with food. At one point the aroma of Japanese BBQ was very strong and we thought of our friends Mike and Kim. They would have loved it too.

There were even flowers for sale. 

There are many different kinds of cherry blossom trees: white and pink, weeping etc etc.

We followed the masses. A Japanese group of mainly older people (I am sure it was a family) was trying to take a group photo with a selfie stick. I offered to help but they thought the could do it. Quickly the lady said she rather would like to have my help. I took several and they laughed and had fun. Yes, it was still raining. She looked at the first photo and said it was perfect and she was beaming. Ha-ha, and an older gentleman in that group was filming me the whole time. Such fun people. Wished I had one of the photos of them.

We were amazed how many people were there. Great colorful sea of umbrellas. When you think it doesn't look that many in this photo it is because I was waiting often to have a shot of more nature and less people. 

Imperial Prince Akihito was the first president of the Japanese Red Cross Society and contributed to the development of it. Such an imposing fellow.

There would have been so much more to see. Besides the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science, and the Ueno Zoological Garden there are lots of hidden treasures. There are statues and historical monuments, ancient shrines and temples. We never could get close to the five-storied pagoda which we saw between the trees. At one point we even had to turn around and find another way because the way was so muddy and the water was standing so high that we were afraid to get even wetter feet. Many of the food vendors had shut there stalls. We felt so sorry for everybody.

On the way to the pond. We always like ponds.

Oops, this was not what I had expected. Didn't look so nice. And there was a meandering bridge going through the middle of it in the distance. Ding, ding, ding. See the seed pods in this photo? OMG, this is a lotus pond. This must be so amazing when you can actually wander through a field of lotus flowers.

 

It was actually more a lake than a pond and in the middle was a little island with this shrine. We didn't go in but the surrounding was interesting too.

And then came the point when we were just too wet and were at an entry point close to the train station. We had seen a lot. Unfortuantely my picture taking was not the best today. Oh well...

Cute little girl looking at the frog statue.

We have a map of all the train lines. I think the Information lady who had sold the cards to us had told us that there were 13. Now we had to find the line again we needed. Ok, down into the "rabbit warren".

We did pretty well and even had a conversation in the train with a daddy and his two little children (I think 6 and 4). He was from Taiwan. 

When we were back at Shimbashi we stayed in the "warren" and found an eating place, the 3rd different one. We had to sit next to each other and had other people opposite with a plexi glass partition between us.

James had something spicy. 

My soup looks very bland but it was very tasty.

We wasted a lot of steps trying to find the store where we had bought something the day before but it must have magically disappeared. We never did.

We came to this clock though which played a tune and had figures dance when it was just 3 pm. Don't know whether it does it hourly or once a day at this time. We enjoyed coming to it by chance. I have a video and might put it in when back home.

Warming back up in the room was good. We had nice cappuccinos in the lobby and played our card game.

When we went down later for an appetizer I tried to take a photo down to the lobby but it didn't turn out very well. I think the inside of the building is a six-sided atrium with a glass roof. The hall way circles around and you can look down. The rooms are on the outside with windows to watch the world. James is fascinated with the trains we can always see and hear. Sometimes there are 3 or 4 driving through at the same time. Amazing.

Nothing special for dinner. The salad for me and tagliatelle for James. We declined dessert but took something from the coffee machine up to the room. A cappuccino for James and hot chocolate for me. Ha, that was like dessert.

Now I am writing this blog which always makes me think what a great time we are having. I started on the Cloak Church newsletter, heard bad news about the weather at home (thank the Lord the Nashvillers are ok) and thinking about tomorrow. It will be a long day going home. Lights out soon here.