Towards the end of April, my husband and I went for a walk between Ueno and Nippori stations. After going on a walk between Shibuya and Harajuku last year, I’m half-inclined to attempt to do mini walks between all of the stations on the Yamanote line. The other motivation for this walk was so I could check out some new coffee stores and pick up some beans.
When you think of Ueno, the first landmark that might come to mind is the Ueno Zoo. I generally just skip talking about places I don’t like on this blog (if you don’t have anything nice to say, y’know) but I will make a point of not recommending this zoo. If you come from a more animal welfare-minded country, Ueno Zoo isn’t as good in terms of how they treat their animals. (If you do want to visit a Japanese zoo, I would recommend Yokohama’s Zoorasia or western Tokyo’s Tama Zoo, which both have the luxury of more space).
Ueno is otherwise home to some of Tokyo’s biggest and best museums. if you happened to be visiting Tokyo on a super rainy day, it’s a great way to kill time. In particular:
- The National Museum of Western Art: A nice one if you like art, the last time we visited they were doing a Monet exhibition as well
- Tokyo National Museum: I don’t remember how good the normal exhibits are, but when I last visited they were doing a special exhibit on Mesoamerica which was super cool
- National Museum of Nature and Science: this is the most fun one if you have kids, but pretty good for adults as well. Has dinosaurs and some pretty cool exhibits with a lot of taxidermied animals and bugs. Also the stuffed remains of Hachiko (i.e. the statue of the famous Akita at Shibuya station) is also on display here
Today we were just planning on a walk though, so we cut through the large park near the zoo to head towards the Yanaka area.
As we stopped to admire the flowers near the National Museum, it turned into a bit of an impromptu pigeon photoshoot.
In between Ueno and Nippori stations is actually another station on the Yamanote line - Uguisudani. Rather charmingly, its name translates to “valley of the nightingales”. Not-so-charmingly, it’s also a red light district. The station is somewhere behind the National Museum, so we didn’t necessarily pass right by the station. But I’m going to count it as completed for the purposes for my Yamanote line walking challenge (hey, I get to make the rules here).
I’d been to Ueno a couple of times, but only around the zoo and museum area. I’d never walked in the Yanaka direction, so as we started making our way over there, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the atmosphere was.
As I learned later, this area is made up of three districts - Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi - which are collectively known as “Yanesen”. It survived the firebombing of Tokyo during WW2 and so is one of the few remaining shitamachi (old towns) of Tokyo.
The area was a mix of old, modern, and modern purposely designed to look old. It felt like a rather affluent area too - there were a lot of nice cars around.
I didn’t know anything about Yanesen before this walk. Really, my only objective today was to go for a walk and buy some coffee beans before heading home. So after we first stopped off at Aoyama Coffee Roaster, run by a really friendly Japanese lady, we were recommended to check out the nearby Nezu Shrine.
I had seen it pop up on Google Maps - it’s most famous for its Azalea festival (which brings huge crowds which I was a bit leery of) but I figured it wouldn’t hurt just to stop by.
Although the azalea festival was still ongoing when we went in late April, the azaleas were already well past their peak. But even so you can imagine how gorgeous it must look when they are in full bloom.
Entering the azalea garden itself costs money, but there’s also a Senbon Torii tunnel of red torii gates you can pass through for free. We gave it a skip because there was quite a long line for it. The shrine was still plenty busy, so I shudder to think how packed it must have been when it’s actually full-bloom.
Heading back out to the main road, we headed towards our next objective, Yanaka Coffee, to pick up some more coffee beans. This sits along the busy Yanaka-Ginza, a shopping street that’s a part of the shitamachi.
To be honest, I don’t have too much to comment on in terms of Yanaka-Ginza itself - personally it wouldn’t be somewhere that I’d recommend you go out of your way to stop by at. Maybe if you wanted to check out a couple of shops to buy a souvenir (or of course, to stop by Yanaka Coffee).
But I did rather like the stretch of side streets you pass before you get here (in between the National Museum and Aoyama Coffee Roaster). That area was quite peaceful - so in that sense I would recommend walking between Ueno and Nippori.
Before getting on the train and heading back home, we grabbed some bagels to snack on. After attempting to bake some recently, I have a newfound appreciation for bagels. In trying to find somewhere to sit and eat them, we ended up wandering into the Yanaka Cemetery, the only patch of greenery nearby on the map.
Alas, there were no seats, but we made do with the swing set at a nearby playground.
From there, we headed towards Nippori station, which is right next to the cemetery. I must say I quite like the design of the station building.
Nippori is also known for its Nippori Fabric Town, home to a huge amount of fabric stores. If you had a bit more time to spare and happened to like fabric, you could head on past the station building to the other side of the train tracks. We went on a Sunday though, which is the day that most of the stores are closed, so we gave it a miss.
For the completionist, you can also continue walking to Nishi-Nippori station (the next station along the Yamanote line) as a mere 300m separates Nippori and Nishi-Nippori. But we’ll have to come back and visit it another time as we hopped on the train at Nippori station. The Yamanote line has 30 stations in total - we’ve ticked off five of them now, so 25 to go.
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