Rain or Shine: How to Spend a Day in Ueno
Tokyo is a collection of exciting neighborhoods with different personalities, and Ueno is no exception.
While Ueno is probably most well-known for its park, it's a great place to spend a day in the sunshine or in the rain, as I found out on my visit! That's because there is a nice combination of indoor and outdoor things to do.
During my day out in Tokyo, I spent some time in the park, got some street food at Ameyoko, visited one of the area's many museums, and finished my day at FUNDES for some food and a couple of drinks.
Ueno Park
I was off to a rainy start in Ueno Park, but even in the wet weather the park was looking lovely, and starting to get nice and green for spring. There were still a few late blooming varieties of cherry blossoms here and there getting a lot of attention, too.
The park is known for its cherry blossoms which line the pathways of the upper garden and the central walkway going through Shinobazu Pond, but it's a nice place for a walk year-round, particularly around the pond. Spring has its cherry blossoms, but summer has the lotus flowers, autumn a few maple trees, and even in winter there are daffodils and plum blossoms.
I also love how Bentendo Temple sits on an island, because even when there aren't any flowers around it looks like something out of a storybook.
Ameyoko Street Food
With the rain picking up I decided to make my way over to the famous Ameyoko, a kind of market street alongside the train tracks. I knew there were a few places to take shelter over there!
The name is a shortened version of "Ameya Yokocho", meaning "Candy Store Alley". This is a name it got for itself just after WWII, when vendors started selling black market candies under the rationing system, and the name stuck. But now, the vendors sell all sorts, and you can find everything from Japanese hot savoury food to Taiwanese desserts. These kinds of street food areas aren't the most common in Tokyo, so it's a fun change from other districts you might visit.
Seeing as you're not supposed to eat food in the streets in Tokyo, most of the street food spots have some sort of seating, even if it is a bit cozy! I chose two that I knew had some indoor seating out of the rain: Niku no Oyama and Kiminoen.
At Niku no Oyama I had their Yamitsuki Korokke, or "Addictive Croquette", which is a mix of mashed potato, meat, and other ingredients all deep-fried in a crispy batter. It definitely hit the spot on a rainy day. And to get my sweet fix I went over to Kiminoen for a matcha ice cream. It was nice to sit inside surrounded by tea while eating the green soft serve.
Tokyo National Museum
When there was a bit of a break in the clouds I made my way over to the Tokyo National Museum. Something that I like about Ueno is that even though it's certainly nice when the weather is good (as with anywhere), it has quite a lot of indoor activities too, so you can duck in and out if the weather changes. That's partly because of the collection of museums in and around Ueno Park. I just went to one this time, but the National Museum of Nature and Science and the National Museum of Western Art are right next door, so you can do a bit of museum hopping if you have time.
Although there are certain temporary exhibits at the Tokyo National Museum, there are also a lot of exhibits that have the same ongoing theme, with items getting changed out regularly. During my visit I spent most of my time in the Japanese Gallery's ceramics, samurai, and kimono sections.
I think my favorite part was the kimono section, which had a collection of elaborate kimono, including this extravagant red one from the Edo period (1603-1868) featuring bamboo and cherry blossoms. But it's a lovely place to explore as a whole, with different exhibits to walk through, all in a sophisticated building established in 1872.
I'll say one thing about the museum, it's certainly easy to lose track of time when you get really immersed in all the exhibits! So before I knew it I'd already worked up an appetite for dinner.
Dinner and Drinks at FUNDES
Ueno is a funny one, because there are a lot of izakaya (almost like Japanese pubs) in the area, but I remember on my first visit to Ueno I found them a bit daunting. I wasn't sure if there would be any English menus, and I felt somewhat out of place.
Which is why I was glad to collaborate with a new spot called FUNDES, which feels much easier to enter. There's no-one outside trying to coerce you to visit their establishment, and no pressure to immediately choose somewhere. You can decide where you're going to go beforehand, or just go and pick a floor!
When I visited, I decided to try two different floors: floor six and floor one.
I started with floor six, home to KORONAGIRAI. The bright and spacious interior felt quite refreshing and welcoming in Ueno, where places can often feel a bit cramped. And there was a choice between shared seating or a little booth.
KORONAGIRAI is a specialty restaurant for oden and robata-yaki, two very Japanese ways of cooking. Oden features different ingredients simmered in a soy-seasoned broth. If you've not eaten much traditional Japanese food before, it will probably all be new to you, because oden usually has things like konjac (devil's tongue, a squishy plant-based cube), chikuwa (fish cake), daikon radish, and shirataki (konjac noodles), among other things! Robata-yaki, on the other hand, is simply a type of grilling, where food is cooked over hot charcoal. And although the paper menu is only in Japanese, you can use the table's QR code to order in English.
When you visit an izakaya like this, there is also typically a non-negotiable table charge that gets you a small starter dish. Usually the charge is about 200 yen and you get a small pickled dish, but here it is 550 yen, because you instead get all-you-can-eat oden. I didn't expect the huge plate that I received, so I didn't even go back for seconds! Knowing I was going to another spot after this, I just ordered some chicken thigh skewers and a robata-yaki corn. It was hard to stop with just those dishes though, because the extra flavor from the robata-yaki grill made me want to order 10 more! The strawberry fruit sour drink helped wash everything down and reset my palette with something sweet, though.
Then I headed down the elevator to the first floor, which is actually a floor full of different smaller izakaya, all open 24 hours.
It was hard to choose but I decided to go with Uomaru Honten, which specializes in fish. I got the tuna sashimi assortment, gyoza dumplings, and a glass of a sake from Shizuoka prefecture. This is the kind of place where if I had been with a friend, it probably wouldn't have been just one glass!
The gyoza were nice and crisp on the bottom, and came with a dipping sauce I couldn't get enough of. The tuna was an assortment of different cuts of the fish, with varying levels of fatty richness, going well with the sake between bites. I could see people sitting across the way with their meat dishes too, which would have been very tempting if I had any room left.
This floor was a bit more like the kind of small groups of izakaya you find dotted around Tokyo, so it feels like a good place for an introduction into izakaya culture. The menu here had handwritten English too. As there are so many establishments on the one floor, you could easily hop from one to the other and try out their different dishes and drinks.
Given that it was just me, after all that food and drink (especially the oden!) I couldn't fit anything else in, but there are a lot more restaurants and izakaya to try in FUNDES, so take your pick!
Other Facility Information
Tokyo National Museum
Hours: 9:30 to 17:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sunday if it is the day before a national holiday) (Last entry 30 minutes prior to closing)
Closed: Mondays (except when a national holiday, in which case closure is on Tuesday instead), New Years holidays