Wandering Fel

8D Avia Japan Tour: Tokyo Skytree and Ueno Park

Cherry blossom viewing at Ueno Park Tokyo

Jim Beam Highball Truck at Ueno Park on weekend

Japanese cemetery on the way to Tokyo Skytree

Cherry blossom viewing near Tokyo Skytree Japan

It’s already November and I haven’t finished documenting my travel log from March. But the good news is we are coming toward the end of the travel log and I’m gonna start a new one in December. After our challenging walk at Nakamise Street, we boarded the tour bus again to go to our next destination Tokyo Skytree and Ueno Park. However, the tour does not book a visit to Tokyo Skytree for us so it’s more like photo stop with Tokyo Skytree as a background. Thankfully I’ve been to Tokyo Skytree before although I did not want to spend $ to go up to the observatory deck since I have been to one at Tokyo Tower. But I feel it’s really a pity not to at least stepping into the tower and take a look around the shopping mall underneath the tower. There’s even a huge Totoro shop there.

Oh well, the tour participants seem to be happy enough to pose with Tokyo Skytree as its background so what can I say. After spending 20 minutes here to take picture, we made our way to where the bus could park and then boarded the bus again to next destination, Ueno Park. The road between these two popular tourist destinations is heavily congested especially since that day was a Sunday. So we were stuck for nearly 30 minutes with Japanese cemetery view from our bus window. We saw that each tomb seems to have names imprinted on the wooden sticks. Our local tour guide explained that usually the tomb consists of a family of 4 so you will see many sticks at the top of one tomb. I suppose they layer the casket on top of each other inside one tomb plot.

Someone asked what if the family is huge, would they be able to be buried together? In this case, the tour guide explained that it is common for a big family to be buried separately or even, cremated. Hmm, I suppose land is also scarce and expensive too here in Japan. Not just in Singapore. Haha.

45 minutes later we finally reached Ueno Park and since back then we were at the last week of sakura season, festivity vibe could still be felt right at the centre of Ueno Park where people have picnic while viewing the sakura tree. In addition, there are many food/ drink stall (which is mostly offering beer I dunno why) and also, street performances because it was Sunday. Not sure if the weekday vibes of Ueno Park is that jolly though. There is no entrance fee to Ueno Park so you can just stroll inside to enjoy the beauty of the park for free. To be honest, I prefer Shinjuku Park to Ueno Park for sakura-viewing but the entrance free to Shinjuku Park is not free and you are not allowed to bring alcohol inside the park. Plus minus I suppose.

As part of our "sakura journey" trip, we included Ueno Park inside our itinerary. It turns out that Ueno Park is a popular place to have a hanami (i.e. picnic under the cherry blossom tree) and the area is swarmed with people on Saturday morning. This is the view right outside Ueno Station. Well, I guess we did not have to worry on how to get to Ueno Park.

During the early stage of our planning, we noticed that there are quite a number of hotels with reasonable prices near Ueno Park. We ended up choosing hotel in Shinjuku for our accommodation in Tokyo,but, if you don't mind staying near to Ueno (which means near to Akihabara and Tokyo Skytree), you can probably choose one of the hotels nearby.

Right outside the park, there is a big white sakura tree. Since I managed to find a good spot under the tree, I just took my shot here before it got too crowded to stand. Hahaha.

Ueno Park is really beautiful during spring and it is no surprise that the park is completely packed by people.

10D9N Spring Japan Trip: Sakura Season at Ueno Park, Tokyo

There are a lot of variety for the cherry blossom trees in Ueno Park. It has the white color sakura as well.

And the slightly pink sakura too.

If you want to secure a good spot under the row of cherry blossom trees, you must chop the spot. The Japanese loves hanami so much they can really do anything under the tree. Eating with your friend or family or simply nap under the tree. Although I highly suspect that those people who nap under the tree is guarding the place while waiting for their friends/ families to arrive with the food. Hahaha.

Toward the other end of the row of cherry blossom trees, we spotted a mixture of pink and yellow color tree. Not sure what kind of trees they are but they look pretty nonetheless.

Pink and yellow trees at Ueno Park Tokyo Japan

There is no admission fee to enter Ueno Park. If you'd like to, you can visit the temples which are located around Ueno Park. For example, there are Kaneiji Temple, Kiyomizu Kannon Temple and

Bentendo. There are museums nearby too such as Tokyo National Museum and National Science Museum.

Wandering Fel

8D Avia Japan Trip: Tokyo Skytree and Ueno Park

10D9N Spring Japan Trip: Sakura Season at Ueno Park, Tokyo