Tokyo, Japan
Ueno


Ueno is a cool park area with many interesting areas to explore. At one end is the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the Science Museum. There were a couple of shrines around and a nice fountain in the middle of the park with many people eating around it. Ueno was also the home for a smallish zoo. Since there was so much stuff here, most of the pictures are from this area.
There are enough pictures, that I've broken up the pages a bit more.

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ueno Zoo
Museum of Science

Ueno park is an interesting area. First of all, it's a huge park surrounded by skyscrapers. Second of all, within its boundaries is a zoo, an art museum and a science museum. Here's the edge of the park and just across the street, the city starts. It's almost like given the chance, the city would engulf this park easily.
	This is the entrance to the park and also the only pictures of me from the entire trip. This was just a cool tree. It doesn't actually have any significance whatsoever. However, it does remind me that while we were resting under a similar tree a man approached us and in broken english asked if he could pray over us. Ummm, "okay?" So he bent his head and started praying in Japanese. He probably saw us take pictures of Asakusa temple and was cursing us. I have no idea. Anyway, when he finished, he said "domo" and walked away. Then two women approached us and asked us to pray with them. They told us to bend our heads and close our eyes. "ummm, okay?" So we did. I kept peeking to see if anyone was laughing at us. No one was. They left after about 5 minutes and we decided we didn't want to rest anymore.
This is a statue of someone important. I know that because at the time, we read a little blurb about the person. 3 years later I can't remember anything other than the guy was extremely fond of his dog. You'd think I'd have a better memory for this stuff. But with only 2 days to really do any running around, I'm afraid not much stuck. This is also the only picture of Keith from the entire trip. We obviously weren't into people shots.
	A classic Japanese arch over the entrance to a shrine. I didn't actually see very many of these on our trip. Walking through Japan without any guidance is a very strange thing. The significance of a lot of these things was totally lost on us. A shrine in the middle of the park probably had some reason for being there, but I couldn't tell you what it was.
This was part of the shrine area in the middle of Ueno Park. I'd say that someone went crazy down at the garden supply store with the japanese lamps except that these were real. Next time I go travelling I will definitely learn a bit more about what I'm seeing because I sound really stupid explaining it later.
	One of the shrine areas that we visited inside Ueno park had this sign. For the rest of the trip we kept a close watch for stray bonfires, but we never saw one.
Here's a multi-tiered building in the classic Japanese style. This was in a clearing of Ueno Park. Feeling self-conscious, we didn't go investigate what it was. I'm guessing the large antennae on top is a lightning rod of some sort. This is of course a wild guess.
	What the heck?!? Does the Lyon's Club get EVERYWHERE? Yes, this is really a totem pole from the Lyon's Club. The little plaque explains this as if the blue circle surrounding a big white L wasn't a giveaway enough. Very odd sighting to find in the middle of Ueno Park.
Yet another cool building in Ueno park that I'm not sure what it is. I believe this was a restaurant but I couldn't really tell. I was constantly afraid that I was going to walk into what looked like a restaurant and was really someone's house or something else that I shouldn't be in.
	Another random shrine in Ueno Park. This one has incense burning in front of it. The shrines were all extremely gorgeous and serene. Speaking of serene, to give you an idea of how safe it is in Tokyo, while riding subways we'd routinely see businessmen during lunch hour. They'd get on the subway, put their briefcases on the floor or on the rack and FALL ASLEEP. They weren't worried about anyone stealing their stuff. Culture shock is coming back to the San Jose airport and suddenly having to be worried about your backpack again.
This was a cool temple in Ueno Park. Along side the door are two dragons carved in wood and painted gold. They were beautiful. Many of the buildings had intricate details engraved or painted on them. Added to the traditional Japanese architecture, it made the buildings look amazing.
	This is the central area of Ueno Park. The fountain was spectacular, changing heights and directions. Many families sat on the concrete area surrounding the fountain having lunch. Very different from sitting on the grass for picnicking.
I took a picture of one of these huge black birds that were all over the place in the park. However, I realize behind the bird is illustrated what I meant about the picnicking families. I mean, that's concrete they're sitting on. I never saw any other place where people went to eat lunch. Oh, and I didn't realize while I was taking the picture that everyone was staring at me. Oops.

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All photos copyright Anne Sullivan