Ueno Market

With the rain finally easing off we set out to walk around Ueno, a market and shopping area just North of Akihabara that also hosts Japan’s oldest Zoo. The station was a 20-minute ride around the Yamanote line from our hotel and we started out late morning.

Walking around the market area we saw plenty of fish and vegetables on sale alongside handbags, trainers and sunglasses. Throughout our visit the market was full and bustling with crowds all going about their business, giving a ‘real life’ feel to the area not found in the fashionable districts like Ginza. We left the market to the West and backtracked up Chuo Dori to Ueno Park and the Benten-do Shrine.

After snapping photos of pretty much everything, cats, fish and ninja turtles included, we moved on to Ueno Zoo and spent a good couple of hours wandering around looking at the animals there.

Ueno Zoo Monorail

The zoo is normally ¥600 to enter but was free today, and is nicely laid out in two halves with a short monorail and footpath running between them.

Eventually we were feeling a little footsore and went back to the market for a bite to eat. Well I did at least – K looked rather ill while I ate my Octopus Balls (not as gross as it sounds) and didn’t seem hungry after that. Heh.

TV Spot: Riko Narumi from the J-Dorama One Litre of Tears is the new face of NTT Docomo. She appears on most trains and all the NTT leaflets, as well as a few TV ads.

There’s also an ad for DHC (for MEN!) that appears mostly on the trains and never fails to make us laugh – it shows three guys with a bizarre… I don’t know.. scalp cooler? You have to see it to appreciate how mad it looks. Sadly it’s not yet on YouTube.