Tokyo: Episode Eight Ueno (上野)

Today we made our way to Ueno (上野) where "you can feel history and culture". I don't know if we felt that, but we certainly spent many hours at a musuem, lol.

There are actually a number of museums at Ueno Park. Enroute to the one recommended by Chin Boo, we saw these sculptures in front of The National Museum of Western Art Tokyo.

This is Adam.

No prizes for guessing this one. Eve lah.


My favourite: The Thinker. Possibly reflecting my yearning to be one, wahahahaha


We asked Hiromi the other day about gingko trees and she told us that some trees go from green to yellow to red; some go from green to red, skipping the yellow part; some go from green to the ground, lol. Here you see 2 obviously taking different paths.

Also, she told us that only the "female" trees bear fruits. Interesting. Here i secretly took this pic of 2 women picking up the gingko fruit from the ground. Look closely and you can see a string tied around the trunk. The significant other figured out that those with strings are "female" lah.

It's rather smelly when you peel away the flesh in an attempt to see which part of the fruit resembles the gingko nuts we see in the stores.

This is a fruitful tree ;-)


Yes, we visited the National Museum of Nature & Science.


But not before posing in front of the huge whale sculpture...


and the locomotive.


This museum is divided into 2 parts: Global Gallery which features exhibits on the history of life on earth and the Japan Gallery (self-explanatory). We first went into a 360 degree theatre to watch a short film on dinosaurs. It was in Japanese but it didn't mar our experience at all - it was awesome to be in a spherical theatre. The omni theatre at our own Science Centre has a huge screen in front of you. This one is all around you, you can also see through the glass panels you are standing on.

Fossil of errr something lah


Ah, some early creatures...

Can you spot the significant other?


The Apatasaurus

Here you see Ethan holding an audio guide which explains about the exhibits in English. I think the rental was Y300. At first we agreed that i will listen to it and tell all the others what i hear. But the kids fought over it and in the end, when Ewan was tired of it, Ethan was the one who had it for the rest of the visit.

Not sure what is so fascinating about these but father and sons like them very much leh


Underwater thingys


This is the intestine of a COW, it goes on and on and on.....lol


In this room, you can see stuffed animals. Ewan called out to them "Hello, how do you feel being stuffed?" LoL


In one of those interactive rooms. Was surprised that this Japanese guide spoke English. Nice.


Half way through our visit, it poured. So we took our lunch there and took our time with the exhibits. We actually stayed till closing time at 5pm.

One of our last stops at the Japanese Gallery.

Satisfied that they saw these giant beetles at the end of the visit.

When we walked out the museum, it was like late night though it was only slightly after 5. It was still drizzling but we thought we should at least visit Ameyoko (アメ横) which is a well-known shopping street in Ueno. But like pasar malam leh, so we left after buying strawberries and bananas and headed for Ginza (銀座) in search of the other big toy store that was mentioned in our guide book. We found it lah, but no luck in finding the toy the boys wanted :(