We had an awesome day yesterday! Shared days off are like mini holidays as that’s when we get to play tourist and really enjoy the sights and sounds of Japan. We had planned to go into Tokyo to Ueno Park, the city’s biggest park, to view the cherry blossoms on Sunday afternoon but yesterday was so warm and sunny that we decided not to wait. There’s been quite a bit of rain lately and we would have been terribly disappointed if we’d waited until Sunday and the weather hadn’t cooperated.

We set off for Tokyo right after lunch. The trip into the city took longer than it should have because we made the mistake of getting on a local train that stopped at every stop along the way. We won’t do that again!

Once we finally arrived in Tokyo, finding the park was no trouble at all. The Ueno station is literally underneath the park! Ueno is definitely a place we’ll go back to again as it houses the highest concentration of museums and galleries anywhere in Japan. Yesterday we were there for hanami (blossom viewing), however, so we spent a couple of hours simply strolling through the park. After that, while we waited for darkness to fall, we explored Ameya-yokocho Arcade, a lively shopping area of tiny shops and crowded alleyways directly across from the station. We enjoyed supper in one of the tiny restaurants there. Once it was dark, we returned to the park as parts of it are lit up at night during cherry blossom season.  What an amazing sight!

We made our way home via a much quicker train and hadn’t been back in the apartment for an hour when a tremendous thunderstorm blew in and it began to pour rain again!