Ueno Kouen 上野公園, Taito-ku 台東区
The temperature on Friday was in the 40’s Celsius. Still, Irena and I wanted to get out of the house for a bit and take the kids somewhere, but outdoors was definitely not a good option. The National Science Museum (Kokuritsu Kagaku Hakubutsukan 国立科学博物館）in Ueno Park turned out to be a perfect place for kids to enjoy and also to escape the heat. Ema, Keiji and Arisa all had fun walking amidst the stuffed life-like animals and various displays. With so many different aspects of science covered, every child is bound to find at least one of the exhibition halls of interest, if not all of them. Our only disappointment is that none of the display descriptions are written in English, so we didn’t get to really learn much about the things we saw. There might be English audio guides but we didn’t think to check. Maybe we’ll just have to wait until our kids start reading Japanese and we can ask them about history of what’s on display.
To get to the National Science Museum by train get of at Ueno Station and make sure to exit at the Park Exit. From that exit, Ueno Park is right across the street. When you walk in Ueno Park you’ll soon see the Museum of Western Art, after that building make a right and continue straight and you’ll see a giant blue whale in the distance. There are also signs leading to the National Science Museum. There are elevators and ramps at the station.