Tokyo is a city with so many things to see and explore, you need to divide it up by districts. While Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ginza are very well-known, there are older districts that are a little more laid-back but still very interesting. The two times I’ve been to Tokyo, I stayed in the middle of two historic districts. To the east was Asakusa, and to the west was Ueno.
Ueno is considered a center of the Shitamachi (lower city) part of Tokyo, which is traditionally working-class. Historically, this is where the artisans and merchants lived, while the nobles and samurai lived in the Yamanote (hilly) part. Ueno has a lot of older buildings and are less glitzier than Shinjuku or Shibuya.
Ueno’s main attraction is the giant Ueno Park, in which the National Museum, Tokyo Zoo and several other museums are located. You’ll also find a few temples and shrines, including one dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the great Japanese shogun who helped unify the country in the 17th century.
The park was actually built on the site of a major battle in 1868 when shogunate samurais (Shogitai) tried unsuccessfully to resist the new Meiji government. The tomb of the defeated Shogitai warriors lies inside the park. There is a large lotus pond at the south end, Shinobazu Pond, that looks out onto office buildings, providing a stark contrast between nature and man-made structures.
The Tokyo National Museum, the country’s main history museum, stands at the north end of the park. It is one of the best museums I’ve been to, featuring great collections of Japanese artifacts, art, and Asian artifacts. These include Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian and South Asian exhibits, as well as an Egyptian mummy.
Ueno train station is nearby, and if you saw the first Wolverine movie, it was featured during a chase scene. Opposite the park is a shopping area called Ameyoko Market (Ameyokocho), a busy street market in a bunch of alleys. The “Ame” in its name stands for America, as it was a black market for American goods after World War II. In the evening, its numerous pachinko (a popular Japanese pinball-like game) parlors really light up the area.
How to get there: Ueno Park is on the left of Ueno station, one of Tokyo’s main train stations as well as a subway station on both the Ginza and Hibiya lines. Ameyoko is right below Ueno station.
Tokyo National Museum
Kiyomizu Kannon-Do Buddhist temple
This statue is Saigo Takamori, who was a samurai commander who led an imperial army in an uprising (when the battle in Ueno happened) but then rebelled against the government in 1877 and died under mysterious circumstances in the climatic battle. According to Wikipedia, the plot in The Last Samurai, the Tom Cruise samurai movie, was based on his rebellion. When I visited Ueno Park, I was unaware of all this history until I stumbled onto the Shogitai tomb (below) and the samurai statue.
Ameyoko Market
