Wak-wak-walking from Ueno to Yanaka Ginza!

Date： 11/26/2022

Place： Ueno area > Yanaka area

Participants： Hamii, Danica, Mika, Catherine, Mitsuho and her daughters, Fuka and Moe, Minnie, David

This past Saturday, we enjoyed wak-wak-walking in Ueno area!

We met in front of Family Mart near Ueno station! It was raining hard at the time, but the weather turned good as we started walking!

First place we visited was Kiyomizu-Kannon, which was built by a priest Tenkai, who served Tokugawa shoguns from the first, Ieyasu, to the third, Iemitsu.

Nostalgic feeling takes over mind when viewing scenery of once-Edo from this hilltop. Centering Edo Castle, Tenkai suggested to built a huge village of temples in this hilly area locted in the direction of Kimon (a gate of damons) to protect Edo from misfortunes.

Then, we continued our journey dropping in on some spots on the way to the next destination, Ueno Tosho-gu.

Ueno Tosho-gu is a shrine built by Tenkai on Ieyasu's last will, and it enshrines three shoguns, Ieyasu, Yoshimune and Yoshinobu.

As you can see, there is a five-tiered pagoda on the right hand. However, this pagoda doesn't belong to Ueno Tosho-gu now due to the movements of Shinto and Buddhism separation took place from the end of Edo era to the mid of Meiji era.

Then we stopped in at Tokyo Prefectural Museum for a restroom break!

Reloanched to the autumn park!

There is a reasonable cafeteria in Children's Library building, and we came to have lunch here!

No expectations nor complaints for the taste, for the price is very friendly, but at least it fueling us to walk on!

After lunch, we came to Tokugawa family grave zone in Kanei Temple. Six of Tokugawa shoguns rest in this yard.

Then we steered ourselves in the direction of Yanaka Cemetary Yard.

Eiichi Shibusawa and his family's tombstones.

The last shogun, Yoshinobu's tomb was surrounded by the tombs of women who supported him.

After visiting Yanaka Cemetary Yard, we enjoyed exploring around Yanaka area!

Finally, we arrived at Nishi-Nippori Station! We walked more than 15,000 steps today, learning about history, and enjoyed shopping, too!

Thank you, everyone! It was so much fun having a weekend walk with you!