Ueno

Ueno park is a big public park situated at Ueno, Tokyo. It is located very near to the Ueno station.

At Ueno park

There are many attractions within the park. There is a group of people doing some musical program. They are using musical instruments made of bamboos. We spend some time enjoying their music. It as really interesting.

 There is a statue of the Imperial Prince Komatsunomiya Akihito who is the founder of Japanese Red Cross Society.
Similar to the gates(but less in number and shorter)  of Kyoto's Fushimi Inari, there is a shrine situated int he Ueno park too. It is the Gojouten(Hanazano Inari) Jinja.There are a number of statues o dogs situated there.

There is a Great Buddha face in the park. The giant Daibutsu that has been situated there was destroyed in some earthquake. The statue was taken up and the metal as used during the world war.

Shogitai's monument

Since it is getting late, we couldn't spend much time int he park area. Looking from the park we could see a temple at the other side for the road, coloured in red and green with a hexagonal shape.

View of the Bentendo temple from Ueno park.

Bentendo temple

Shinobazu pond

The temple has a octagonal shape with red and green colour. There is a large lotus pond behind the temple. Also at the southern part of it, there is another large pond called Shinobazu pond.There are a lot of boats for the visitors to enjoy a boating.

        After boating we spend some time over there and  moved to the Ueno zoo.The specialty of Ueno zoo is the Pandas. They are always chewing and spitting some tree branches and it seems interesting. 

  The polar bears of this zoo seems happy, always playing in water and then coming out.

White owl

Every animals and birds are kept inside cages and it doesn't suited for taking photos.After completing the zoo visit, we moved to the Shinjuku station where our bus ill reach by night 10pm.

A rainy morning at Asakusa Sensoji temple

After having our breakfast from the Toyoko inn, we started our Sunday at Tokyo aiming the Asakusa Sensoji temple. It was slightly raining from the morning itself. It was not much disturbing since the rain is showering slightly. Taking a one day pass for JR from the station, we reached Ueno station with the hope that rain will stop. But the rain still continued with more force so that we turned towards Asakusa and reached the Sensoji temple. It was heavily raining. 

ASAKUSA temple

The reddish temple building and the five storeyed pagoda of Asakusa were awesome for making us enough snaps even in the rain. We could see the sky tower from there, but the rain clouds sometimes seems to cover the tower head masking its beauty.

The five storeyed pagoda of Asakusa

There were three or more small and large temple buildings with in Asakusa. Infront of one of them, there was a pond with blue colored water and colorful fishes inside it. Buddha statues were situated on both sides of the main temple building.

There are a lot of shops for souvaneirs near the Asakusa temple. Even though it was heavily raining, it is rush at every shops.Since it is the Japanese tradition to buy  Omiyage from the places they visit, it seems crowdy at the shopping area.

A view of skytower from Asakusa

Another trip to Tokyo`s Odaiba

              This is my second trip to Tokyo, Japan's  largest city, after exactly 2 years. This time with my parents-in-laws and hubby. We reserved bus for Shinjuku station and upon reaching there at  1:30 pm, it was highly crowded. After spending 15 minutes over there, we decided to go to Odaiba and hence reached the Yurikamome line to reach Shimbashi, from where we took a one day open pass worth 820 yen/person. And this pass is sufficient for us to make our train journeys all around Odaiba for the entire day. By the Yurikamome`s rubber-tyred train, we reached Daiba station of Odaiba.

Shimbashi station

Odaiba

              Once we reached Odaiba, we had our lunch over there. And then we walked through the shore where we could see some programs being conducted for children and there were people enjoying surfing in the waves. I am seeing surfing for the first time in my life in real. It seems so interesting to me. Then we walked towards the replica of The Statue of Liberty where we clicked enough snaps. 

The replica of Statue of Liberty

             From there we could see the Fuji TV building also. Odaiba as a whole had so many changes in two years. The gardens adorned with Tulips when we visited last time here had some other small flowering plants creeping all over the ground still with artistic elegance. 

              The Diver City which was under construction during our last visit had now being completed and the Gundan statue over there is now heading up with more pride infront of it. There was a circus group over there opposite to the Diver City building which was a temporary arrangement beautifully constructed. 

The Gundan statue infront of the Divercity building.

Circus tent

Cycle parking area

          After spending some time in the park around there, we walked towards the Venus fort, inside which there was a display of cars of ancient Japan , which sounds very interesting and it reflected the great status of Japan before some 50 years back. The arrangement of buildings and shops recreated there also reflected the social setup of ancient Nippon which all tells the story of an advanced society before ages.

A car displayed in the Venus fort

Replia of a fruit stall of ancient Japan

           
                   One of the very interesting things we could found there was the marble statues at the middle of the building and the roof made like sky and clouds that exactly made us to feel like we are standing just beneath the clear sky and it felt to me like it was inside the planetarium.The entire view inside the fort exactly resembles the so-called heaven in our fairy tales as it is seen from my snap below. So amazing.

Marble statues inside the Venus fort.

View inside Venus fort.

Play area at the center of the Venus fort.

         

               Then, we walked towards the Ferris wheel and entered it, from where we could see the entire Odaiba island's beauty. After that we just made a round through Odaiba by train since my in-laws found it difficult to walk any more. Within the train we could see the entire Odaiba when all the lights lit, on the rainbow bridge and the Ferris wheel along with the parks and the buildings.

Rail of Yurikamome line

Ferris wheel

Rainbow bridge

          When we said Sayonara to Odaiba once again, I feels like there will come another chance to visit here.