Ueno Park

It was a nice day and I felt the spring-ish sun press on my back for walk. So I walked to Ueno Park. It's a spacious public park and also the home of a number of major museums. To be honest, I wanted to see the permanent exhibition at the National Museum of Western Art, but unfortunately it was closed because of the preparation for the next exhibit...

The Shinobazu Pond is completely covered by lotuses during the summer, but now, it's a bit of a barren view...



According to Wikipedia, here was the unlucky direction to the northeast of Edo castle (where the Imperial Palace now stands). The northeast direction was once termed the kimon (demon gate), and was considered where evil spirits passed. So there was the Kan'ei temple (founded in 1625) and once a great complex. Most of the temple buildings were destroyed in the Battle of Ueno (1868).

Ueno Park is also famous for cherry blossoms and hanami (cherry-blossoms viewing party). I've seen the news about cherry blossoms here on TV, but it was the first time to walk among them.

There was a Inari shrine. Inari is a popular deity of foxes, of crops, of agriculture and indsutry, of general prosperity etc, with shrines located throughout most of Japan. These red torii gates reminded me of Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto.



 In front of the Tokyo National Museum, tulips were blooming! Spring has been coming!!



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