Ueno Park was one of the biggest surprises on my second trip to Tokyo. I’d spent my first day reacquainting myself with spots I loved on my first visit, but I knew I needed to explore beyond the usual city center sights. And that second day took me to this wonderful green space.
What I didn’t expect was how jam-packed Ueno Park was with its own attractions. I knew about its zoo from planning my first trip, but I had NO idea that the park was also covered in shrines, museums, and even a lotus pond with a temple on an island connected by a bridge.
Here’s what I’d try to see on a first visit to Ueno Park, from wandering around Shinobazu Pond near the southern entrance to the museums at the north end…
What to see in Ueno Park
Shinobazu Pond and Bentendo Temple
Walking into Ueno Park’s main entrance from Ueno Station for the first time, one of the first things I spotted was Shinobazu Pond. And as I quickly discovered, it’s bigger and stranger than it looks from the bridge. What looked like one pond is actually three, split by a few causeways.
The Lotus Pond fills with blooms every summer, and is the one that most visitors stop at first to photograph. The Boat Pond, to the west, holds the rowboat rental docks.
Cormorant Pond sits in the quiet northwest corner against the zoo, with a bird sanctuary that most first-time visitors walk straight past. Standing here, away from the crowds circling the bridge, is about as quiet as Ueno Park gets. It’s worth the extra ten minutes if birds interest you more than paddle boats.
I’d venture over to Shinobazu Pond just to see Bentendo Temple. It sits on Benten Island in the middle of Lotus Pond. Bentendo Temple was built by the monk Tenkai, not long after he founded Kaneiji Temple in 1625.
Boats were the only way across to Bentendo Temple until a bridge was built in 1672. The temple standing there now is a postwar rebuild. (Like many of Tokyo’s most beautiful temples & shrines, the original was destroyed by a WWII bombing raid.)
Bentendo Temple itself is small, and there’s not much to see inside. The setting earns the stop, not the building. (If you collect goshuin, Bentendo issues a limited monthly design in ukiyo-e style. It’s ¥500 for a handwritten or pre-printed version.)
If you want to catch the lotus blooms at Shinobazu Pond, time your visit for late July before noon, since the flowers close for the day soon after. Rowboats, pedal-powered cycle boats, and swan-shaped paddle boats are available for rent at the Boat Pond section for ¥700 yen for the first hour.
If I only had time to stand in one spot in Ueno Park, it’d still be the bridge over to Bentendo Temple at golden hour, lotus season or not.
Shitamachi Museum
Before moving on, I’d try to hit up the Shitamachi Museum at the southeast corner of Shinobazu Pond. It’s close to the park’s south entrance, so it’s easy to jam in before reaching the zoo or the shrines further in.
The Shitamachi Museum opened in 1980, six years ahead of Tokyo’s Fukagawa Edo Museum and thirteen years ahead of the Edo-Tokyo Museum. It was part of a wider push at the time to document what ordinary life in the city’s old shitamachi (low city) neighborhoods actually looked like before it disappeared.
(The museum closed for renovation and reopened in 2025 with updated exhibits.)
A life-size replica of a shopkeeper’s home fills the ground floor of the Shitamachi Museum. A rickshaw and a hand-pulled cart sit parked out front. It’s built at a scale closer to an actual house than a museum diorama.
Upstairs, we find everyday objects from the Meiji and Showa periods, like housewares and wooden toys.
I’d send you to the Shitamachi Museum over either of the bigger museums up the road to get a real sense of how people in this neighborhood actually lived, not just Japanese history and culture.
Admission to the Shitamachi Museum is ¥300 for adults, ¥100 for children. The museum closes on Mondays, like most of Ueno Park’s other indoor attractions.
Ueno Zoo
Ueno Zoo sits right against the pond’s western edge, close enough to Cormorant Pond that the two practically share a fence.
The giant pandas that used to draw the longest lines at Ueno Zoo, Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, went back to China in January 2026. Since then, the crowds are nowhere near as dense.
(There was even a lottery in place to see the pandas, making visiting next to impossible for short-term visitors!)
Even without the pandas, visiting Ueno Zoo is one of the most interesting things to do in Ueno Park, especially if you’re traveling to Tokyo with kids. The zoo keeps around 3,000 animals across some 300 species. And a few of them you won’t find almost anywhere else in Japan.
I’d start my visit with the aye-aye house, featuring nocturnal, unsettling-looking lemurs kept on this scale at almost no other Japanese zoo. The okapi—a part zebra-striped, part giraffe-necked mammal from Central Africa—gets skipped by visitors still rushing toward the pandas’ old spot out of habit.
Four of Japan’s twelve captive shoebill storks live here. I’d seek them out for how strange they are to watch; they hold so still that you’ll need to do a double-take the first time one moves.
The polar bear enclosure lets visitors watch them swimming underwater through the glass. Sumatran tigers show up near the viewing windows in the morning. A baby pygmy hippo joined the hippo pool in 2026.
If I had time for only one enclosure, though, it’d be the Gorilla Woods. The gorillas move through a reconstructed forest habitat rather than sitting behind glass, looking bored. With the setup, it’s easy to forget you’re standing in central Tokyo.
Japan’s first monorail line, which once connected the East and West Gardens, shut down for good in 2023 after 62 years of operation. A free shuttle bus covers the route now.
Admission to Ueno Zoo costs ¥600 for adults, ¥300 yen for seniors, and is free for children under 13. The zoo closes on Mondays.
Keep in mind that the ticket booth stops selling entries at 4 pm, an hour before the gates actually shut.
Saigo Takamori Statue
Climbing the stairs from Keisei Ueno Station into Ueno Park, one of the first things you’ll spot is the Saigo Takamori Statue. Although he was one of the most powerful figures behind the Meiji Restoration, even known as “The Last Samurai,” this bronze statue depicts Saigo in hunting clothes walking his dog.
The casual outfit was a deliberate and controversial choice.
Saigo died in disgrace in 1877, after leading the failed Satsuma Rebellion against the same imperial government he’d helped install a decade earlier. Emperor Meiji pardoned him posthumously in 1889.
When the government commissioned this statue in 1898, they dressed him as a commoner rather than in military uniform or samurai armor. It was a decision his own family reportedly resented.
I walked right past this on my first visit without knowing what I was looking at. And this is exactly why I’d suggest stopping by on your visit to Ueno Park. Pull out a translation app to read the plaque to learn more about this important historical figure.
Hanazono Inari Shrine
A couple of minutes further into the park, tucked onto a small hill, is Hanazono Inari Shrine. I’ll admit that the fox-and-matchmaking combination here sounds like a bit of a mismatch at first.
Foxes serve as Inari’s messengers throughout the grounds. The shrine itself is dedicated to Ukanomitama no Mikoto, a deity of livelihood and, more specifically here, matchmaking and marital harmony. Locals come to pray for relationships, not just business luck.
(Yeah, it’s an odd pairing, I know.)
A second shrine shares this hill with Hanazono Inari: Gojoten Shrine. It’s dedicated to the god of medicine and health.
Gojoten Shrine moved in next door in 1928. It’s close enough that its hall sits just steps from Hanazono Inari’s own. It’s easy to walk through both without ever realizing they’re separate shrines.
The tunnel of vermilion torii gates is the actual draw here. Local businesses donated them over the years, giving thanks for good fortune.
Walking through, the gates crowd in so close on both sides that the path narrows to shoulder-width in places.
(I’d also warn you that getting a clean photo without someone else in frame takes patience, especially at midday.)
Tucked into a rocky recess nearby is a smaller shrine called Ana-Inari. It was built to honor a fox that lost its den when Kaneiji Temple went up centuries ago. The current structure dates to 1873, and is a rebuild of a 17th-century original.
If Fushimi Inari isn’t on your Japan trip itinerary, I’d treat Hanazono Inari Shrine as a consolation prize. The torii tunnel here is still quite interesting, even if a little less dramatic than its ultra-famous counterpart in Kyoto.
Ueno Toshogu Shrine
Five minutes from Hanazono Inari is Ueno Toshogu Shrine. And while I wouldn’t consider it a stand-in for its far more impressive namesake in Nikko, one of my favorite side trips from Tokyo, it’s still one of the coolest places to visit in Ueno Park.
Feudal lords donated 209 stone lanterns and 48 copper lanterns here in 1651, when the current buildings went up. Each one showed loyalty to the Tokugawa shogunate without saying it outright.
Six of the best-placed copper lanterns flank the Karamon Gate. They were gifts from the three families closest in line to the shogunate itself. All 48 copper lanterns are now protected as Important Cultural Properties. Walking the path between them, lantern after lantern catching the light, is a slower, stranger experience, in my opinion, than photographing the gold hall at the end of it.
That gold hall, Konjiki-den, is the actual draw for most visitors. And I think it earns its reputation.
Covered floor to roof in gold leaf, Konjiki-den survived the Battle of Ueno in 1868, the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and the Tokyo firebombing of 1945 without serious damage. It’s quite a rare survival record for a wooden structure in this city.
Ueno Toshogu Shrine itself dates to 1627. It was built by the lord Todo Takatora and dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu. What’s standing now is the 1651 rebuild ordered by the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu.
I’d try to time a visit between January and mid-February, or mid-April through to late May, to catch the peony garden in bloom. Between both seasons, the garden holds roughly 500 plants across more than 100 varieties.
Entry to the peony garden costs ¥700. Admission to the park itself is free.
Kiyomizu Kannon-do Temple
Kiyomizu Kannon-do Temple sits just below Toshogu. It’s close enough that you can walk between the two without checking a map.
Tenkai built it in 1631, thirty years after Bentendo and Kaneiji Temple. He modeled it deliberately after the real Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, even likening Ueno’s hills to Mount Hiei and Shinobazu Pond to Lake Biwa.
Kiyomizu Kannon-do is the oldest structure still standing in Ueno Park. The building’s stage-style architecture, overhanging the slope on wooden supports, is a direct nod to its Kyoto namesake.
The temple moved to its current spot in 1694 and was one of the few Kaneiji buildings to survive the Battle of Ueno in 1868. Out front is the moon pine, a pine tree trained into a circle, which Hiroshige painted in a famous woodblock print.
The original tree didn’t survive a Meiji-era typhoon. The one growing there now is a second-generation replacement, restored in December 2012.
Standing under it, it’s a strange thing to realize you’re looking at a piece of a 200-year-old woodblock print in real life. I’d argue the moon pine alone is worth the short detour off the main path.
Tokyo National Museum
Keep heading north, and Ueno Park opens up into museum territory. I’d start exploring it with the Tokyo National Museum.
Honkan holds the museum’s main Japanese collection, featuring ukiyo-e prints, ceramics, and swords. It’s the largest such collection in the country.
But Honkan is only one of five buildings on the grounds, and nothing at the entrance gate makes that obvious.
Toyokan next door covers Asian art from China, Korea, and beyond, while Heiseikan handles archaeology and rotating special exhibitions.
If Honkan already ate up a big chunk of your day exploring Ueno, I’d suggest adding in the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures. Tucked off to the side, it’s easy for first-timers to miss it between the bigger buildings.
Thirty minutes is enough for exploring the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures. It’s small and quiet, with Buddhist statues and relief images donated from a temple in Nara, providing some relief after dodging the big crowds at Honkan.
Treating the Tokyo National Museum as a whole as a quick stop is the easiest way to blow your schedule. I’d budget at least three hours for Honkan and one other building. (Or maybe even most of a day if you’re set on seeing all five.)
Admission costs ¥1,000 for adults, ¥500 for university students, free for anyone under 18, over 70, or visiting with a disability.
PRO TIP: I’d recommend reserving your ticket online a day ahead if you’re visiting on a weekend; the same-day allocation can run out before the gate line even starts moving. If you only have time for two buildings, pair Honkan with the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures.
National Museum of Nature and Science
Right next door, sharing a plaza with Tokyo National Museum, is the National Museum of Nature and Science. It splits into two buildings that cover very different ground.
The dinosaur hall in the basement of the Global Gallery is the reason I’d prioritize one over the other if you’re short on time.
Full skeletons of a Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and Apatosaurus hang suspended in natural postures. The Triceratops here is one of the most complete specimens found anywhere, built from over 85 percent original fossilized bone rather than reconstruction.
I wasn’t expecting a museum inside a park to have anything on this scale. It’s the kind of exhibit that’s worth building extra time into your museum day for, whether you’re a dinosaur fan or not.
The Japan Gallery next door covers different ground entirely, showcasing the country’s geological formation, native wildlife, and its earliest inhabitants. It’s housed inside a building recognized as an Important Cultural Property in its own right.
If dinosaurs aren’t the draw for the kids, this half tends to hold their attention just as well.
Admission to the National Museum of Nature and Science is ¥630 yen for adults and free for high schoolers and younger. It’s free on May 18 for International Museum Day and on November 3 for Culture Day.
National Museum of Western Art
The last stop on an Ueno Park museum tour, a short walk from the other two museums, is the National Museum of Western Art.
The building is as much the exhibit as anything hanging inside it. Le Corbusier designed it between 1955 and 1959. It’s his only completed project anywhere in the Far East. It’s been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016, alongside sixteen other Le Corbusier buildings worldwide.
You don’t need to know anything about architecture to notice that the National Museum of Western Art building doesn’t look like anything else in Ueno Park. It’s raw concrete, pebble-dashed panels, with none of the wood and gold leaf everywhere else in the park.
The collection inside the National Museum of Western Art has its own strange history. Kojiro Matsukata assembled nearly 400 paintings and sculptures in the 1920s. France confiscated the whole collection after World War II. The two governments eventually struck a deal: France would return the art, but only if Japan built a museum designed by a Frenchman to house it.
More than 6,000 works now fill the National Museum of Western Art, Monet, Van Gogh, Rodin, and Degas among them. The collection spans the Middle Ages through the mid-twentieth century.
Even if you’re not an art lover, I’d still set aside a few minutes to admire the building, if for no other reason than to appreciate the contrast between its architecture and Ueno Park’s greenery.
How to get to Ueno Park
JR Ueno Station is the easiest way into Ueno Park. Exit the station through either the Park Exit or the Shinobazu Exit, and you’re at the park entrance within two minutes. The Park Exit puts you directly across from it.
If you’re coming in on the Keisei Skyliner or another Keisei Line train, Keisei Ueno Station drops you about a minute from the park. The stairs here lead to the Saigo Takamori Statue.
For the Tokyo Metro Ginza or Hibiya lines, Ueno Station is about a five-minute walk. (Before heading to the park, I’d also squeeze in a visit to Ameyoko Market, right near the train tracks.)
If you’re coming in from exploring all the cool attractions in Chiyoda City, Nezu Station, on the Chiyoda Line, is a similar five minutes but puts you closer to Shinobazu Pond on the park’s west side.
If the museums are your priority, I’d start at Uguisudani Station on the JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines instead. It drops you almost directly behind the Tokyo National Museum, on the park’s north edge.
Practical info
- Address: Uenokoen, Taito City (map)
- Opening Hours: 5 am to 11 pm, daily
- Admission: Free
