Ueno zoo

I have been in Japan 2 months now, and it is totally inacceptable that I have not yet been to Tokyo! So today I decided to visit Ueno park, as it is easily accessible and has bunches of things to see all right there. However I kind of misjuged the size of the park. So my first visit of Tokyo.... turned into the visit of only Ueno zoo.

Well that's not completely true... I had promissed myself not to leave Japan without seeing a Shinkansen. Today I saw 6 in 15 minutes, so guess that's a success. They are not only bullet trains but they go every 3 minutes!

And I also got to experience a tokyoite sakura fever, which is a bit more exuberant than the countryside ones. Here is the main alley of Ueno park at 9am ....

.... and at 3pm (note the sakura-fan on the step ladder, and the red power-ranger in the distance who turned around too late for the photo so you can't see where he had the little golden bells attached ...)(He did, yes. This is what the japanese do when they're not being extremely quite and well behaved.)

This zoo was quite different from the Kanazawa one. The cages themselves aren't landscaped, but they have enough space in this one that they can have their own lotus lake (not growing yet), with a monorail going around the parc and everything.

They have all sorts of animals, from lions and tigers to gorillas, and bunches of different birds. They're very into establishing breeding colonies of endangered species, so it was like walking through a Gerald Durrell book. They even had the flat toads that he gets in Argentina! They really are flat, and do look squished a bit. And of course they had all the japanese endemic species, including the giant salamander, and the cranes, and the monkeys.

As well as the animals there is also a 5 story pagoda in the zoo, which is the 'home' of some cranes, ducks, geese and swans, as well as the ever present crows. I am getting into the sakura habit, so here is the pagoda with and without blossoms. The cherry trees are just getting into swing. In a couple of weeks you won't be able to move in that park it'll be so packed full of people.