Japan: Day 4 - Ueno

After a slow start, we went to Ueno Park today, a huge public space in North Tokyo. Within its grounds are the Ueno Zoo, the Tokyo National Museum, the Museum of Western Art, the National Museum of Nature and Science and several others besides.

We got to Ueno station (on our line, around 40 mins away) a little before 11, and after an iced chocolate (to delay the inevitable demands for food), we walked down the main avenue towards the zoo. A week ago, the avenue would have been stunning with cherry blossoms, but it was still very pretty - and full of people. (I believe its the last weekday of the school holidays, and a lovely day weatherwise, so I'm not surprised the hordes were out and about.

Trust me, there were hordes.

One of the big attractions at the Ueno Zoo are the pandas. We diligently queued and walked through the chicanes, being attacked by prams and strollers all the way. We thought it might be like walking past Lenin's tomb - keep moving, don't pause - but a bit further on, it opened out. Once the keepers had finished topping up their pens with fresh bamboo, the pandas were allowed back in. The whole crowd was constantly being harangued by three staff with loud speakers, but I haven't a clue what they said. I did ask someone, who tentatively translated that the male was in one pen, and the female in the other.

Guess which one this is.

Given our late start, we made some strategic decisions to visit a limited number of the animals. I understand this is a very old zoo, but even so, the very small pens seem positively cruel. A lot of the animals seemed to be acting neurotically, like the red panda constantly doing laps, and the three-banded armadillo pacing back and forth so quickly I couldn't get a picture.

Three banded armadillo

Amongst other animals, we saw (and smelled) some Jackass Penguins (yes, really, that's what the sign said) and some orange flamingos. We saw Eastern Grey kangaroos in an enclosure smaller than our apartment, and an emu in a narrow pen the length of it - these are animals that truly need the wide open spaces.

We saw aardvarks licking each others mouths to a froth through their adjoining cage wall, their thin whiplike tongues flicking out periodically.

And we saw lots of gorgeous tarsiers and baby marmosets and all sorts of cute animals in the nocturnal house (I haven't yet mastered the low-light features of this camera), so no pics, sorry. Anyway, the tarsiers (tiny wee things) leap about like nobody's business - I couldn't have got a low light picture if I'd tried!

Baby marmosets, pausing momentarily in their boisterous play.

Around quarter to one, we determined it was lunch time. The options within the zoo were singularly unappealing, so we went out hoping to find something more interesting (and better priced) outside its walls. And did we what!

Just outside the zoo walls there is a strip of semi-permanent food stalls. Most serves were Y500 (~$5), although there was some variation - a very large cob of barbequed corn was Y400, for example. We chose: two very yummy egg, bacon, vegetable doughy things about the size of a large English muffin, brushed with a sweet soy sauce of some sort, squirted with thin strips of mayonnaise, and sprinkled with shaved dried mushroom (one for Y300, two for Y500); eight octopus balls, also brushed with the sauce, squirted with mayo and sprinkled with mushrooms (Y500); and a skewer of barbequed beef (although Jos nearly ended up with tongue)(Y500). That lot filled us up nicely, and we picked up a few bottles of drink a bit farther on for Y150 each.

Some of our other choices included: 

noodles with mushrooms and cabbage - very popular

Calamari, presliced, which would be barbequed before you

Cucumbers on a stick (I think), but I've no idea how they would be served

and the frankly not all that appealing salted, charcoal grilled fish-on-a-stick

After that, we went to the Museum of Western Art. The guy who acquired the pieces that started this gallery had a difficult run of it. He had collected a massive range of artworks, with the specific intention of donating them to the state on his passing. However, the company he ran went bust in the late 1920s and he had to sell many of his locally-held pieces just to stay afloat. The part of his collection that was held in London was destroyed by fire, and the balance of the collection, held in Parris, was confiscated during WWII (Japan being an enemy of the state, and all that). In the 1950s, as relations improved between the two countries, France returned many of the artworks, which became the foundation pieces for this collection.

It includes a huge number of statues by Rodin, including versions of the Thinker, Balzac, The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell.

Inside, there was a Special Exhibition focussing on Raffaelo (Raphael), which was wonderful (no photos allowed). Unfortunately, all the explanations were in Japanese, so I dug deep into my decades-old one semester worth of art history, and gave what explanations I could to the kids. 

The kids were starting to fade, so we practically whizzed through the permanent collection - a sample of works from the C14th to C20th, arranged in roughly chronological order. In particular, they had an excellent sampling of the French Impressionists, including a room dedicated to Claude Monet.

but also Sisley, Pisarro, Renoir, Gaugin, Cezanne, but also Picasso, Pollock, Ernst, Miro and more. And I got a postcard of a red cock, to send to work.

By that time, the boys were completely knackered, and we were happy to head home too. We stopped off at the supermarket to get strawberries (full flavoured ones, like you get from a pick-your-own or Irrewarra, not the tired tasteless ones like supermarkets normally sell), Febreeze (to destink the apartment, no luck on that count), some jam (into which to stir crushed painkillers for Ky) and some grog (no $10 bottles of sparkling wine here!)

They weren't these mega expensive strawberries (Y5250, ~$55 for this box)
(exquisitely presented, to be given as status gifts to your boss and the like)

All up, a good day (the weather was stunning), and our first day wholly unassisted (we coped fine!).