Ueno

Wednesday was a lot more than I expected it to be.

My guidebook said Ueno park was an absolute must see, and said there were free walking tours every MWF at 10:30. I was just expecting another pretty park, but I love walking tours of all flavors, so I decided to give it a go.

When I got there, I realized that Ueno Park was a ‘park’ in the same sense that Central Park in New York is. It’s only about half as big, but it’s got a zoo, the Tokyo National Museum, a half-dozen other museums, and a big handful of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, on top of being lined with the (now obligatory) cherry trees.

I got there and found the tour, which was led by a nice Japanese lady whose name I just realized I have

Our guide.

totally forgotten. Along for the ride were a couple from Melbourne that were about my age, an older Indian couple from Atlanta, and two other older American couples. Everyone spoke English, so it was nice being able to have an actual conversation while we waited (my English has slowly been eroding). Our guide gave us a brief history of the park, most notably that it used to be a big castle complex. Ueno is to the northeast of the imperial palace, and in Shintoism, the northeast is the direction evil spirits come from. So, after the completion of the palace, the castle was built to protect the palace from the spirits. A large battle took place there some years later, and the castle grounds were burned. The park was built in its place.

Rinnoji temple

Explanation complete, our guide took us by a few of the museums (including the science museum, which had a life-size model of a blue whale just chilling out front), then to a Buddhist temple at the northeast corner of the park, called Rinnoji temple. Our guide showed us how to cleanse ourselves at the temple well before approaching (left hand, right hand, tough water to your mouth), then how to ring the bell to make a prayer. She also showed us the wall of votive prayer tablets you see at pretty much every temple and shrine here. People buy a tablet with a certain image on it, write their prayer or wish on the back, then tie it to the wall. Rinnoji used to be where people would make a donation of a horse for major life events, so its tablets had a picture of running horses.

Tosho-gu shrine

After that, we wandered up the east side of the park, past the National museum, then went to the Tosho-gu

shrine to the Tokugawa family (which controlled the shogunate during most of Japan’s feudal age). I came back later to look around more, but before that we went back to the center of the park to see a few more temples and shrines (see my flickr for photos) and the head of the Ueno Daibutsu (‘great Buddha statue’) which was destroyed in an early 20th century earthquake.

When our guide left, I went back to a grilled eel restaurant we passed earlier and got a bit of a surprise. When I walked in, I was asked to remove my shoes, then led to a room with straw mats and cusions on the floor in front of calf-height tables. A bit more formal than I expected, to say the least. The grilled eel and rice was still tasty though, so no complaints here.

Room where I had lunch.

After that, I went back through a few temples and shrines to get more photos, then went up to the Tokyo National Museum. They had a special exhibition on the art of one of Kyoto’s biggest Buddhist temples, which was pretty cool, but let’s be honest: I just wanted to see some samurai swords. The museum had several, including some of the earliest examples of the curved swords, called ‘tachi,’ as well as several katanas and tantos. I grew out of my ‘OMG samurai are the coolest’ phase a while ago, but my inner teenage boy was still a little giddy seeing them. It’s really weird seeing a sword that’s 1000 years old, and not only still sharp, but still looks just as it did the day it was forged, from the shallow groove on the back of the sword to the smooth curve from hilt to tip. Most of the swords were designated as ‘Important cultural properties,’ but a couple were marked as ‘National Treasures,’ meaning that if you bring it into the country, it will be confiscated as property of the government, no questions asked.

After that, I wandered the tea houses and gardens behind the museum, then went home and grabbed dinner at a yakitori bar near my hotel, where I got grilled chicken and something else which I (yet again) have no idea what it was.

What's this? Your guess is as good as mine.