Asia Trip - April 18

 18 April 2025

Visit to Ueno. Today started with a more traditional Japanese breakfast of rice and eggs. We also added mushrooms and onion to it, which made for a great way to start the day before another day of travel north.

Ueno for me will always be a highlight of the Tokyo area. As a kid I went there multiple times for shopping and to play video games. As an adult I have more enjoyed the museums along with the shopping. My plan for today was to visit a cemetery, a museum or two, and do some shopping.

The train ride from Miurakaigan station to Ueno takes about one and a half hours and has one transfer. You are immediately greeted with Ueno park, where we went directly to the Art Museum. The special exhibit was a collection of Miro. We did not know this artist, but thought that it would be interesting to see. While not my favorite collection there were still pieces that I found beautiful and inspiring.

Also on exhibit was sculptures from local artists, which we were able to enjoy. Despite not being a collection from a nationally or internationally recognized artist, some of the pieces were strikingly good. In many ways, this sculpture exhibit was more to my taste than the Miro exhibit.

After that, we were ready for lunch, and ate at a cafe in the park called Everyone’s cafe, which has dishes that I would describe as Japanese fusion. They were Japanese inspired, but not exactly Japanese. They describe their own menu as international. Still, it was good, and was nice to sit on their patio and enjoy the beautiful weather.

From there we walked to the Yanaka Cemetery. This massive cemetery is the resting place of many famous Japanese people, including some of the Tokugawa Shogunate family. It is also somewhere that is freely open to the public to visit (unlike other cemeteries that are on private ground and visits should be respected to those visited a specific decedent or family). As a funeral director it is not surprising that I find visiting cemeteries and understanding burial traditions of other cultures fascinating, and so I really enjoyed this.

As we walked back towards Ueno station, we stopped and had a sweet treat from Marguerite, a little shop that featured pastries and ice cream. We were able to enjoy some great pastries, and some Melon Soda Floats, which ended up being very good.

Near the Ueno station is Ameyayokocho, a prominent street market. We went here for shopping and found a few treasures. One thing that we did was eat some tanghulu (candied fruit, often served on a stick), which is genuinely better than it sounds. Also while shopping on this street I thought it would be a good place to find a Zippo from Japan. Hunting for a Zippo is something of an art in and of itself. Certain shops are more likely to carry them than others, even within the shop they are more likely to be in certain areas of the shop, and over the years I have been able to really hone that skill. On this specific hunt I really felt great as I found some Zippos within just a few minutes. To my delight, many of the zippos were Japan specific, so I ended up with another beauty for the collection.

A couple of train rides back home and we had an easy dinner from 7-11 to end this very full day. I really only had one regret for today. I wish that we hid visited the Tokyo National Museum instead of the art museum. While the art museum was good, I know that the Tokyo National Museum has many Japanese specific items in their collection, and I thought would have been something better for my travel companions. Still, another great and full day.