Ueno

photo by The original uploader was Sdalu at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

Ueno Zoo opened in 1882: the oldest in Japan, on 14.3 hectares within the park.

From the park exit of Ueno Station the avenue opens straight away, with Shinobazu Pond on one side and the national museums on the other: the Tokyo National Museum, the museum of Western art, the natural science museum. Further on, among the Buddhist temples and the Tōshō-gū shrine, you hear the zoo before you see it. Going down towards Okachimachi Station, the park ends abruptly in the narrow alleys and stalls of Ameyoko.

The name goes back to the feudal lord Tōdō Takatora, who saw in the land a resemblance to his domain of Ueno, in present-day Iga (Mie). In 1625 the Kan'ei-ji temple was built here, the burial place of the Tokugawa shōguns, and a pilgrims' neighbourhood grew up around it. On 4 July 1868, during the Boshin War, the Battle of Ueno destroyed much of the Kan'ei-ji; on its ruins, in 1873, Japan's first public park was created. The zoo opened in 1882, growing out of a menagerie attached to the natural history museum. Ueno Station, opened in 1883 as the terminus of the Tōhoku line, became for a century Tokyo's gateway to the north of the country, and Ameyoko was born after the war as a black market between Ueno and Okachimachi stations.

ℹ️ The park is public and always open; the zoo (closed on Mondays, or on Tuesday if the Monday is a public holiday) and the individual museums have their own tickets and hours. Ameyoko keeps shop hours, generally until the evening. JR Ueno Station (Yamanote, Keihin-Tōhoku, Utsunomiya, Jōban), Tokyo Metro Ginza and Hibiya, Keisei Ueno.

🚉 Keisei-Ueno · 5 min walk

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · ja.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · zipangu.it · magical-trip.com

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