tsewei’s blog

This time round I took a long ride up north to Ueno station for a glimpse of Old Tokyo.

Unfortunately for me, I missed the sakura by 2 months, so I headed off to the Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park for the summer view.

It’s a charming little spot, with huge lotus leaves spreading over a large portion of the pond.

It’s almost like a lotus leaf invasion — they’ve taken over the entire place.
But no flowers yet. Later in the summer maybe.

It was very calm on a weekday. No thronging crowds of the cheery blossom season so it’s peaceful. Saw a lot of people walking their itsy-bitsy dogs, or just cycling. Some just hang out by the pond and read.

And it seems the park is a popular spot for homeless people. Most just hang around there and feed the ducks, or sleep.

Apparently you can also row boats at the pond. But I noticed the people were not wearing life jackets! Eecks. Maybe I didn’t see correctly or something. I dunno, the weather may be hot, but dropping into the pond for a swim is not my idea of a great afternoon.

But these fellas are enjoying the water just fine.

Okay now these 2 are drying off at the steps.
They look so cute. Kinda reminds me of the duck that Joey and Chandler had in Friends.
Wait, are these white ducks, or geese?

And completing the picture of a quaint old-styled place, is the little shrine right before the Shinobazu Pond.

There’s a zoo as well, but I wasn’t exactly planning on smelling monkey’s poo for an afternoon so I gave it a miss. There are several museums (on art, history, everything) within Ueno Park, but I’d leave that for another day. It’s not exactly my ability to stretch the afternoon’s hours to fit that much in. But, I did check out the street market nearby, Ameyoko-cho.

With small tiny shops wedged tightly together, Ameyoko reminds me of Petaling Street in KL. You can find all sorts of cheap (and fake) bags, shirts, shoes, belts, etc. There’re also a lot of lil’ shops and stalls that sells vegetables, fruits, seaweed or fresh seafood. I swear they were selling tentacles of a giant octopus that were so huge, they look alien. yeeks.

The cool thing about this street? It’s as if these shops have train tracks as their roofs. The entire street market runs parallel to the train tracks from Ueno station to Okachimachi station. So as I shopped, I could hear the trains chugging by every now and then.

Also, I wasted 100yen just for a piece of pineapple! Fruits are expensive here. Will eat fruit at any cheap opportunity. Imagine paying 380yen for one-sixth of a watermelon. And it’s not even seedless! 100yen for any fruit is the cheapest so far, so I dove straight in for one. *slurp*